\* 
r 


BY 

EMERS 


CH 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


Ex  Libris 
[    C.  K.  OGDEN 


THE   SOWING 


3 

a 


JP 


THE  SOWING 


..  A    "YANKEE'S"   VIEW 
OF  ENGLAND'S  DUTY  TO   HERSELF 
AND  TO    CANADA 

By 

Emerson    Hough 

in  ° 

Author  of  '•''The  Mississippi  Bubble'"'' 

11  The  Way  To  The  West" 
11 54-40  or  Fight, "  etc. 


CHICAGO.  LONDON.  TORONTO: 

VANDERHOOF-GUNN   CO.,   LIMITED 

WINNIPEG 

1909 


COPYRIGHT  1909  BY 

VANDERHOOF-GUNN  COMPANY,  LIMITED 


Entered  at  Stationer's  Hall,  London,  Engr. 


All  rights  reserved. 


TO 

The  Workers 

THE  MEN  WHO  MAKE  THE  WORLD 

THIS  BOOK 
WITH  DEEP  RESPECT.  IS  DEDICATED 


"No  praises  of  the  past  are  hers, 

No  pains  by  hallowing  time  caressed, 
No  broken  arch  that  ministers 

To  Time's  sad  instinct  in  the  breast. 

"She  builds  not  on  the  ground  but  in  the  mind 
Her  open-hearted  palaces —  .... 

"Her  march  the  plump  mow  marks,  the  sleepless 
wheel ; 

The  golden  sheaf,  the  self -swayed  common  weal; 

The  happy  homesteads  hid  in  orchard  trees,  .  .  . 
"What  architect  hath  bettered  these? 

With  softened  eye  the  western  traveler  sees 
A  thousand  miles  of  neighbors  side  by  side; 
Holding  by  toil-won  titles,  fresh  from  God, 
The  land  no  serf  or  seigneur  ever  trod.1' 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

i.  THE  VERY  POOR  .         .         .         .         ...       1 

ii.  THE  BLIND  LEADING  THE  BLIND  .         .         .  .19 

in.  THE  MASTER  OF  DESTINY     .         .         .  '      .   "  .     30 

iv.  CANADA        .         ...        .         .         .  .     36 

v.   NATIVE  DAYS  IN  CANADA  WEST  .  47 

vi.  CATTLE  DAYS  IN  CANADA  WEST  ...         .  .52 

vn.  ON  THE  NEW  FRONTIER       .         .         .         .  .59 

vin.  OVER  SEAS  .         .         .         .         .         .         .  .71 

ix.   HIT  OR  Miss  PHILANTHROPY         .         .  .75 

x.  THE  VIEWPOINT  OP  A  JURIST        .         .         .  .86 

xi.  THE  VIEWPOINT  OP  A  GOVERNMENT  OFFICIAL  .     91 

XH.  THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  AN  IDEALIST          .         .  .   102 

xin.   THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  BUSINESS  MAN  .         .  .114 

xiv.  THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  GOVERNOR-GENERAL.  .   123 

xv.  THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  STATESMAN         .         .  .   134 

xvi.  THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  GOVERNMENT  MINISTER  .   153 

xvn.  THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  AN  ENGLISH  EMISSARY.  .   160 

xvin.  THE  AMERICAN  INVASION     .         .         . '  .  168 

xix.  THE  TRANSPLANTING   .  .   184 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

The  Question  .......     Frontispiece 


PACING 
PAGE 


The  City  .          .       8 

As  They  Live  in  London     .  12 

What  Son  for  this  Father?      .  .         .     16 

What  Daughter  for  this  Mother?                  .  24 

The  Farmer's  Holiday    .         .         .         .         .  .         -32 

Before  Bridges  Came           .....  40 

Native  Days  ......  -48 

Cattle  Days                                                .    «               .  52 
Au  Large        .......••     56 

Leaving  the  Old  World       .                   .  64 

In  Sight  of  the  New  World           .  .72 
The  Royal  Alexandra  Station  at  Winnipeg 
H.  M.  Howell,  Chief  Justice  of  Manitoba 

Bruce  Walker 96 

William  Pearson     .          .                   .  •   104 

Home                    .                             .  .112 

Colonel  A.  D.  Davidson                    ...  .   120 

Earl  Grey   .                   .                   .  .124 

Toronto's  Bread  Line — A  Transferred  Problem  -   128 

Clifford  Sif ton     .                  ...  .136 
The  North  American  Type     ..                 ....   144 

Frankf  Oliver 156 

Peaceful  Invasion  ......  •   168 

Long  Live  the  King    ...  .        184 

The  First  Home  in  the  Bush  .         .   192 
The  Beginning  on  the  Prairie      .....       196 

Close  to  the  Soil     .  .200 

The  Real  Empire  208 

The  Answer  of  the  Harvest.           .  •   216 


AUTHOR'S    PREFACE. 

THE  sweep  of  wide  skies,  the  breath  of  the  wind 
across  unbroken  spaces,  the  touch  of  new  lands  not 
yet  taken  over — amid  these  things  and  in  these 
themes  any  man  may  find  profit  and  pleasure.  The 
author,  at  least,  has  found  in  such  scenes,  now  growing 
rare  in  his  own  country,  soon  to  be  impossible  in 
any  country  as  the  new  lands  pass,  so  much  interest 
that  he  has  taken  for  granted  the  interest  of  others 
in  certain  conclusions  which  seem  to  be  attendant 
on  current  phenomena  to  be  observed  in  the  only 
portion  of  the  American  continent  now  entitled  to 
be  called  the  West. 

The  intent  of  this  work  is  to  view  from  different 
angles,  personal,  governmental,  philosophic  and 
utilitarian,  the  question  of  bringing  civilization  to 
the  wilderness.  No  writer  justly  can  claim  wisdom 
sufficient  to  solve  the  age-old  problems  which  to-day  so 
greatly  complicate  the  question  of  colonization.  The 
only  answer  to  such  problems  lies  in  the  years.  None 
the  less,  we  may  not  deny  the  vital  interest  to-day  of 


xiv.  THE  SOWING 

the  whole  question  itself.  A  history  of  the  United 
States,  so  full  of  splendid  successes  and  deplorable 
mistakes,  but  transfers  a  keener  interest  in  the 
history  of  Canada,  where  such  mistakes  yet  may  be 
avoided. 

It  is  not  merely  a  glib  bid  for  interest  which 
prompts  any  thinker  or  writer  of  to-day  to  say  that 
Canada  is  the  hope  of  the  world.  There  is  serious 
truth  in  that.  Any  study  of  Canadian  colonization 
touches  the  notion  of  the  expansion  of  an  empire. 
Far  more  deeply  must  it  be  concerned  with  the  wish 
to  extend  comfort  and  content  to  all  those  who,  under 
any  flag,  are  weary  and  heavy-laden.  The  author 
hopes  to  indicate  that  business  and  human  kindness 
are  not  incompatible  in  private,  governmental  or 
national  policies.  In  the  affairs  of  a  great  govern- 
ment, a  great  people,  they  indeed  are  inseparable,  the 
one  indispensable  as  the  other. 

Necessarily,  in  any  discussion  of  colonization  two 
sides  appear,  the  business  and  the  idealistic.  Which 
should  preponderate?  Were  it  not  possible  for  the 
latter  to  do  so,  perhaps  one  might  not  so  much  have 
cared  to  undertake  this  labor.  Since  the  theme  may 
hold  both,  and  since  fundamentally  and  disinterest- 
edly it  has  to  do  with  taking  human  beings  out  of 


AUTHOR'S  PREFACE  xv. 

doors,  into  a  wider  and  more  useful  human  life,  and 
placing  them  under  wider  and  bluer  skies  affording  a 
better  human  horizon,  the  work  offers  sufficient 
interest  to  enlist  the  soberest  thought  of  any  man. 
It  has  afforded  keen  delight  to  the  author. 

It  should  be  added  that,  since  the  initial  publica- 
tion of  this  work  in  serial  form  in  CANADA  MONTHLY, 
some  of  the  measures  suggested  have  been  put  in 
force.  For  instance,  the  well-meant  labors  of  the 
charitable  Emigration  Societies  now  are  under  juris- 
diction of  the  Canadian  Immigration  Department. 
Similar  events  in  these  days  of  swift  change  have 
required  certain  emendations  and  alterations  4n  the 
matter  of  the  original  text.  The  theme  has  grown 
upon  the  author.  No  theme  is  greater ;  none  is  so 
great.  Would  some  bigger  and  better  man  might 
handle  it. 

EMERSON  HOUGH. 
May  10,  1909. 


THE  SOWING 


THE    SOWING 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE    VERY    POOR. 

"LET  there  be  light!"  was  the  mandate.  It 
could  not  count  cost,  could  not  qualify.  There  has 
been  light.  Sometimes  humanity  has  burned  in  its 
own  lamp. 

Net  resultant  of  many  warring  forces,  there  has 
come  what  we  have  been  pleased  to  call  progress, 
what  we  call  civilization.  Under  these  the  race  as 
a  whole  may  or  may  not  have  been  benefited,  the 
species  may  or  may  not  in  part  have  deteriorated. 
Certainly  it  may  be  held  true  that  at  times  civilization 
needs  to  correct  itself.  It  needs  to  look  to  it  that 
overmuch  precious  oil  be  not  expended  in  its  flame. 

Civilization  at  any  rate  has  come.  It  has  been 
ours.  We  have  not  cared  to  evade  it,  but  have 
sought  it  blindly,  with  all  our  energy,  in  all  the  ages 
of  the  world.  We  are  what  we  are,  human  units, 


2  THE  SOWING 

some  of  us  strong,  many  of  us  weak,  all  of  us  funda- 
mentally— and  rightly — disposed  to  be  selfish.  We 
have  blindly  pressed  on,  few  asking  why,  toward 
what  we  have  conceived  to  be  a  state  of  greater 
comfort,  under  social  systems  continually  growing 
more  complex.  The  tribal  gathering,  loosely  formed 
for  the  sake  of  mutual  protection,  has  evolved  into 
the  so-called  immutable  governments  of  the  civilized 
nations. 

We  have  in  one  way  or  another  always  set  above 
our  communities,  our  tribes,  our  nations,  some  sort 
of  government;  and  then,  as  time  has  passed,  we 
customarily  have  found  fault  with  that  government, 
sometimes  have  execrated  it,  sometimes  have  over- 
thrown it,  usually  have  modified  it;  always  because 
of  abuses  of  the  great  idea  that  humanity  and  the 
common  good  is,  after  all,  the  greatest  of  all  things. 

Sometimes,  confusing  government  with  conditions 
which  arise  under  government,  we  have,  seeking  to 
set  the  world  tribal  again — that  is  to  say,  to  turn  back 
the  stars  in  their  courses — gone  to  the  desperate 
extreme  of  socialism,  saying  that  since  governments 
oppress  we  should  have  none,  but  should  divide  the 
products  of  the  world  equally,  the  weak  with  the 
strong — the  step  from  socialism  to  anarchy  being  an 


THE  VERY  POOR  3 

easy  and  natural  one,  after  touch  is  lost  with  the  old 
idea  of  the  survival  of  each  unit  through  its  own 
efforts,  up  to  its  own  measure  of  fitness.  This 
doctrine  is  on  its  face  absurd,  and  is  one  neither  for 
a  sane  man  who  has  read  history  nor  a  strong  man 
who  has  not. 

But  certainly  we  have  always,  at  this  or  that  stage 
of  the  earth  ferment,  had  the  strong  and  the  weak, 
the  rich  and  the  poor.  Finally,  in  the  recent  swift 
development  of  what  we  call  civilization,  we  have 
come  upon  a  transient  time  of  utter  selfishness  and 
forgetfulness,  a  time  of  unbridled  greed.  Business 
triumphs,  human  kindness  fails,  the  wolf -pack  is  set 
on  again.  And  now  we  have,  more  than  at  any  time 
in  the  world's  history,  the  very  poor.  Now,  indeed, 
civilization  needs  to  correct  itself. 

It  is  of  no  use  to  turn  away  from  the  truth.  The 
civilization  of  the  Occident  now  sadly  resembles  and 
parallels  the  older  civilization  of  the  Orient.  Suffer- 
ing and  famine  we  of  the  Caucasian  races  also  have 
known  in  the  past.  That  was  as  naught  to  what  now 
faces  us  in  all  the  proudest  capitals  of  the  white  man, 
alike  in  the  Old  World  and  the  New. 

The  Caucasian  has  progressed  in  one  sense  of  the 
term.  He  has  brought  into  use  many  and  wonderful 


4  THE  SOWING 

discoveries  of  science;  he  has  developed  to  an  un- 
dreamed extent  the  possibilities  of  happiness  and 
comfort.  But  alas,  doing  this  as  it  were  with  one 
hand,  with  the  other  he  has  taken  away  from  the  wide 
majority  of  human  beings  all  hope  of  reaching  and 
enjoying  such  possibilities.  He  has  developed  to 
still  greater  degree  the  possibilities  and  the  certainties 
of  human  misery  and  suffering,  of  torture  and  doubt 
and  dread;  and  he  has  put  these  things  within 
reach  of  all!  These  things  make  the  lives  of  many, 
of  the  majority. 

Nowhere  in  any  part  or  period  of  the  world  were 
the  two  social  poles  farther  apart  than  now;  and 
this  nowhere  so  much  as  in  the  lands  we  call  the  most 
advanced.  The  world  was  never  quite  so  rich,  nor 
half  so  poor  as  now. 

It  is  our  privilege  and  our  duty  to  study  our  own 
time  and  to  advance  with  it;  but  it  is  none  the  less 
our  privilege  and  duty  for  our  own  sake  to  study  the 
story  of  other  ages  of  the  world,  to  compare  our  own 
times  with  others.  No  record  is  more  vivid  and  vital 
than  that  of  things  dead  and  gone.  The  hordes  of 
Genghis  Khan  made  history  in  their  day — a  story  of 
savagery  and  glut  of  blood  and  little  human  kindness, 
but  of  many  new-made  maps.  The  slow  splendour 


THE  VERY  POOR  5 

of  the  Byzantine  Empire  is  a  thing  of  august  beauty 
to-day,  as  once  it  was.  The  stories  of  Rome,  of 
Greece,  of  Venice  in  her  time  of  flowered  opulence; 
the  story  of  the  Phoenicians  and  their  adventurings 
afar ;  the  history  of  the  French  kings ;  and  the  steady 
and  manful  story  of  the  rise  and  dominance  of  the 
men  who  came  out  of  the  ancient  forests  of  northern 
Europe  and  spread  across  the  world — all  these  are 
things  which  citizens  of  any  nation  should  know. 
They  teach  humility  as  well  as  pride. 

These  are  stories  of  governments  and  conquests; 
but  at  no  stage  of  any  conquest,  whether  of  force  or 
peace,  was  there  ever  stilled  the  irrepressible  conflict 
within  each  government,  each  nation,  each  society, 
each  and  every  collection  of  those  who  have  given  up 
some  individual  rights  for  a  common  good,  and  who 
have  in  time  seen  these  rights  usurped  or  misused 
by  those  who  took  them  over  in  trust  for  society. 
Never  has  there  ceased  the  war  of  the  individual 
with  the  government.  No  government  nor  any  code 
of  laws  ever  has  remained  unchanged.  New  con- 
ditions of  society  continually  have  arisen  for  adjust- 
ment, and  they  always  will;  and  adjustment  will 
always  come. 

Never,  let  us  say  with  pride,  has  there  ended  the 


6  THE  SOWING 

old  war  born  of  the  Saxon's  insistence  that  he  is  a 
man,  that  some  individual  rights  he  surrenders 
to  no  government  and  to  no  set  of  men.  Here, 
then,  indeed  is  war.  Here,  then,  indeed  is  a  great 
problem. 

Strongest  of  men,  this  old  forest-dweller  has  done 
more  good  and  more  harm,  has  scored  more  progress 
and  more  retrogression,  has  gone  higher  and  fallen 
lower,  achieved  more  and  failed  more  than  any  other 
man  of  the  earth's  days.  His  one  virtue  is  that, 
having  failed,  he  still  will  try  to  set  right  his  own 
wrong  deeds.  He  always  is  ready  to  give  ear  to  the 
demands  of  justice. 

The  measure  of  the  Saxon's  failure  to-day  is  the 
total  of  human  suffering  in  his  great  cities,  here  or 
there,  on  this  or  that  continent.  He  has  the  most 
splendid  cities  in  the  world;  and  yet  they  house  the 
largest  numbers  of  the  poor.  No  race  has  developed 
so  strongly,  or  is  now  so  threatened  with  decadence. 

Yet  each  of  these  poor  is  a  human  being.  Each 
has  deserved  his  chance  if  he  could  find  it.  Upon 
the  least  of  these  was  laid  the  iron  rule  that  he  could 
be  no  bigger  than  his  environment.  Heredity  can  do 
little  for  a  plant  if  it  have  no  soil.  If  a  man  be 
starved,  he  can  obtain  no  stature,  mental  or  bodily. 


THE  VERY  POOR  7 

A  distinguished  American  economist,  Professor 
Thomas  H.  Macbride,  thus  voices  that  old  truth: 

"It  is  a  commonly  accepted  dictum  among 
naturalists  that  every  organism,  every  plant  and 
every  animal,  is,  to  some  extent,  at  least,  a  creature 
of  his  surroundings.  Every  creature  has  come  to 
be  what  it  is  through  long  use  of  a  particular,  stable, 
or  only  slowly  changing,  environment.  Conformation 
to  his  environment  makes  him  successful,  makes  him 
happy.  It  is  thus  the  fish  swims  in  the  ocean,  the  bird 
floats  in  the  upper  air.  Each  in  the  long  course  of 
the  world's  history  has  come  to  be  perfectly  adjusted 
to  the  life  it  leads,  and  is  in  so  far  happy. 

"Now  the  case  of  man  himself  is  not  different. 
Man,  too,  has  his  natural  environment.  Into  it  he 
has  grown;  to  it  he  is  by  nature,  we  say,  adapted; 
so  perfectly  adjusted  and  adapted  that  life  for  him 
under  other  conditions  is  inconceivable,  is  impossible; 
as  much  so  as  for  a  fish  out  of  water;  yea,  far  more  so, 
by  as  much  as  man's  relations  to  the  external  world 
are  so  much  more  numerous,  far-reaching  and  compli- 
cated than  those  of  a  fish.  The  fish  has  a  natural 
right  to  water,  because  he  cannot  live  without  it. 
Now,  if  we  concede  that  there  are  any  such  things  as 
natural  rights  for  man  at  all,  we  must  admit  that 


8  THE  SOWING 

these  are  first  of  all  based  upon  and  determined  by 
his  relation  to  this  external  environment.  They  are 
environmental  rights.  A  man  is  entitled  to  that 
environment  which  has  made  him  what  he  is  by 
nature;  he  has  a  right  to  all  those  surroundings  to 
which  by  virtue  of  long  habit  and  association  he  is 
so  perfectly  adapted,  the  unfolding  of  daily  life  in 
accordance  with  the  natural  conditions  of  successful 
human  living." 

For  the  human  plant,  then,  opportunity  is  as 
necessary  as  the  very  seed  of  life.  The  answer  to  the 
cry  of  the  poor,  to  the  cry  of  the  city,  to  the  cry  of 
socialism  and  threatened  anarchy  is  one ;  and  it  is  as 
easy  as  it  is  complete.  The  answer  is:  More  land; 
wider  opportunities; — in  short,  colonization.  The 
new  lands  of  the  world  offer  the  only  hope  as  we  to-day 
are  organized,  mentally,  go vernmen tally,  physically. 

From  time  to  time  Saxon  man  has  found  his 
opportunity,  or  taken  it,  one  way  or  another.  In 
one  way  or  another  he  has  insisted  on  his  individual 
right,  or  has  wrought  revenge  on  those  who  have 
opposed  him  too  far  or  too  long.  Guided  in  good 
channels,  Saxon  strength  is  useful;  pent  too  long  in 
wrong  ones,  it  always  will  be  dangerous.  Saxon 
strength  is  most  dangerous  when,  clinging  to  the  soil 


THE  VERY  POOR  9 

which  bore  it  and  which  it  loves,  it  finds  not  soil 
enough  f orbits  own  needs,  and  so  dies  while  it  is  still 
alive ! 

Do  not  evade  that  thought,  that  word.  Do  not 
evade  it,  in  England,  in  America.  That  word  is 
Decadence. 

Opportunity  the  Saxon  man  always  has  sought, 
and  usually  while  keeping  in  his  mind  the  old  principle 
that  men  best  win  while  fighting  shoulder  to  shoulder. 
He  has  found  his  opportunity  sometimes  in  other 
lands.  Resenting  even  dictation  as  to  how  he  should 
worship,  he  found  a  new  continent  for  his  churches. 
Followed  there  by  what  he  fancied  was  the  wrong 
notion  of  being  taxed  without  his  own  consent,  he 
took  a  large  part  of  that  continent  for  his  own, 
shoulder  to  shoulder.  Differing,  as  he  fancied,  from 
the  old  country,  he  builded  in  America  under  the 
name  of  a  Republic  a  vast  swift-mingled  empire  of 
his  own,  and  soon  shouted  to  the  world  to  witness  the 
wealth  he  had  won,  and  the  extent  of  the  misuse  to 
which  he  could  put  that  wealth.  Not  much  different, 
save  through  soil  and  climate  and  new  daily  needs, 
the  American  made  all  the  old  Saxon  mistakes,  pretty 
much  as  they  have  continued  to  be  made  in  the  old 
country  whence  he  came.  Professing  to  be  the  most 


10  THE  SOWING 

humane  man  in  the  world,  he  and  his  brothers  have 
shown  the  world,  both  sides  of  the  sea,  the  largest  and 
most  helpless  masses  of  the  very  poor!  In  a  reckless 
and  profligate  age  of  unequalled  opportunity 
and  unparalled  abuse,  he  has  grown  richer  and 
poorer  than  ever  he  was  before;  more  luxurious 
and  more  dangerously  wretched;  and  this  on  both 
sides  of  the  sea.  Let  not  England,  Canada  nor  the 
United  States  seek  to  evade  that  truth. 

The  long  list  of  industrial  successes  of  prideful 
America,  the  vast  tally  of  her  balance  sheets,  the 
figures  of  her  inordinate  and  unscrupulous  wealth — 
what  do  all  these  mean  to  any  man  who  will  stop  to 
think?  They  spell  only  the  old  struggle  in  a  new  age, 
the  old  failures  where  success  should  have  been,  the 
old  misuse  of  opportunities  which  belong  to  humanity 
as  a  whole  and  not  to  a  few  who  in  one  way  or  another 
have  grasped  them.  This  sin  has  been  not  American 
alone,  not  Saxon  alone.  New  York,  Berlin,  London, 
— it  is  difficult  to  choose  between  them. 

In  the  United  States,  even  in  these  days  of  false 
prosperity,  never  was  life  so  near  being  unbearable 
for  those  of  middle  station,  so  perilously  near  to  un- 
supportable  for  the  very  poor.  Correction  must 
come  also  in  America,  or  there  must  be  one  more  page 


THE  VERY  POOR  11 

written  in  Saxon  history,  a  page  of  the  same  old  sort. 
The  spirit  which  rebelled  against  unjust  taxation  will 
rebel  again.  In  these  days  of  close  touch  of  all  the 
world,  it  matters  little  on  which  continent  such 
rebellion  must  come;  but  certainly  America  must 
pause  and  ponder,  or  else  soon  see  revolution.  If  the 
Republic  shall  not  reconstruct,  the  Republic  will 
perish.  The  poor  and  the  very  poor  will  erect  again 
their  place  of  judgment  and  of  execution.  It  is  not 
socialism,  and  not  anarchy  which  says  this.  Worse — 
it  is  reason!  There  will  be  no  division  of  property 
equally  among  the  weak  and  the  strong.  There  is  a 
difference  between  Socialism  and  Saxonism.  The 
United  States  need  not  fear  the  former.  The  latter 
she  well  may  dread. 

In  Germany  the  very  poor  exist  in  swarming 
thousands.  They  have  little  hope,  save  what  offers 
across  seas.  That  country,  called  a  monarchy,  has 
its  own  laws.  Society  is  still  seeking  and  still  fleeing 
the  centre,  in  the  old  way,  none  the  less.  Socialism 
in  Germany  is  a  fact  admitted.  It  is  represented  in 
a  political  party  continually  growing.  It  must  be 
reckoned  with  as  formulating  the  human  discontent, 
the  mutiny  now  brooding  over  so  much  of  the  world. 
A  Socialist  leader  in  the  Reichstag,  in  a  recent 


12  THE  SOWING 

address,  showed  that  in  Berlin  alone  there  were  over 
forty  thousand  unemployed  persons.  The  unem- 
ployed must  eat.  The  others  must  feed  them.  What 
horror  and  what  menace  lie  in  that  term  "unem- 
ployed"— what  menace  exists  in  the  armies  of  those 
who  bitterly  feel  that  life  has  not  given  them  their 
share  of  opportunity.. 

Herr  Bebel,  the  Socialist  leader,  declares  that 
these  troubles  in  Germany  were  wrought  largely  by 
the  abolishment  of  honest  competition,  by  industrial 
combines,  the  prevalence  of  price  agreements, — the 
old  folly  of  trying  to  evade  the  ancient  law  of  competi- 
tion; the  folly  of  the  present  but  wholly  temporary 
tendency  toward  "trusts."  He  said  that  the  poor 
could  not  buy  food  at  prices  established  under  such 
conditions,  declared  that  Germany  was  paying  the 
highest  prices  known  in  the  world  for  everything  she 
used.  The  loaf  of  bread  which  a  year  ago  weighed 
four  and  a  half  pounds  now  weighed  less  than  three, 
and  it  cost  twice  as  much  now  as  then.  The  children 
of  the  cities  were  starving,  not  having  enough  to  keep 
them  strong ;  and  this  was  true  in  those  most  pitiable 
ranks  of  life  too  proud  to  be  called  pauperdom. 
Nearly  five  thousand  school  children  in  Berlin  alone 
were  striving  to  get  some  sort  of  education,  and  to  do 


THE  VERY  POOR  13 

this  were  obliged  to  study  without  food,  to  learn  the 
dinnerless  day.  Many  more  thousands  had  nothing 
better  than  bread  and  coffee  for  any  meal.  He 
knew  not  where  the  end  would  be. 

And  yet  that  end  is  perfectly  predicable.  The 
remedy  is  certain  and  easy.  It  lies  in  better  equaliza- 
tion of  opportunity — cost  what  that  may  to  a  few, — 
or  else  it  lies  in  blood ;  as  in  time  it  will  lie  in  America, 
late  boaster  of  opportunities  free  to  all  the  world  and 
inexhaustible;  as  it  will  lie  in  Old  England,  ancient 
and  strong,  but  not  ancient  and  strong  enough  to  be 
exempt  from  the  law  of  growth  and  change. 

The  story  of  the  pages  of  history  is  slow,  but  very 
sure.  It  says  inexorably  that  those  who  seek  to 
govern,  those  who  seek  to  remain  rulers  or  officers 
in  any  system  of  organized  society,  must  never 
undertake  to  abolish  from  the  world  the  ancient  law 
of  fair  play;  because  there  are  two  who  can  play  at 
the  game  of  foul  play,  the  oppressor  and  the  oppressed. 
This  truth  is  written  for  all  the  nations  to  see,  whether 
republic  or  monarchy,  despotism  or  democracy. 

In  the  city  of  Chicago,  in  the  United  States, 
second  metropolis  of  that  country,  and  one  of  the 
most  swiftly  grown  capitals  of  the  world,  what  con- 
tinuous rush  and  bustle  goes  on!  Stately  buildings 


14  THE  SOWING 

arise,  occupied  by  those  who  do  great  deeds,  vaunted 
industrial  deeds.  You  and  I  see  these  things,  but 
we  know  nothing  of  the  life  which  lies  beyond  them 
and  around  them  and  under  them.  .  In  the  city  of 
New  York  conditions  are  even  worse,  and  the  swarm 
of  unassimilated  millions  still  comes  in.  America  is 
no  longer  a  land  of  opportunities.  It  is  no  solution 
for  the  troubles  of  the  poor  of  Europe  to  transfer  them 
to  the  spawning  grounds  of  the  poor  of  the  United 
States.  That  is  not  to  offer  opportunity.  So  much 
for  a  republic. 

There  are  cities  worse  even  than  New  York.  How 
about  the  countries  of  the  Old  World  ?  Take  the  City 
of  London,  blue  focus  flame  of  civilization's  blow- 
pipe. London  annually  feeds  on  charity  an  army 
of  eighty  to  one  hundred  thousand  of  the  unem- 
ployed. She  has  thirty-five  thousand  children  who 
know  no  such  thing  as  home.  She  has  half  that 
many  criminals  who  are  homeless;  more  than  an 
equal  number  of  women  on  whom  sits  the  worst  of 
all  civilization's  curses,  the  curse  of  unweddedness, 
of  denial  of  motherhood — the  women  sacrificed  to 
civilization  as  we  know  it.  There  then  you  have  a 
picture  from  which  we  are  accustomed  to  turn  away 
our  eyes.  None  the  less,  that  picture  exists.  It  is 


THE  VERY  POOR  15 

there.  We  do  not  blot  it  out  by  turning  away  our 
eyes. 

Multiply  all  these  unfortunates  by  two,  and  you 
do  not  reach  the  total  of  the  tenement  dwellers  who 
daily  live  on  the  edge  of  starvation.  Each  week 
London  has  over  one  hundred  thousand  persons  in 
her  hospitals,  her  workhouses,  her  prisons, — over  one 
hundred  thousand  parasites,  the  unfed  and  the  hopeless. 
Each  night  an  army,  greater  than  the  entire 
military  force  of  the  American  continent,  sleeps 
unhoused  or  crowded  in  cheap  lodging  dens  in 
this  one  city  of  London.  What  hope  of  life  do  such 
conditions  offer  ?  What  can  these  starving  thousands 
do,  and  what  chance  have  they?  What  is  the  end? 
Why,  the  end  of  England,  if  there  be  no  change. 

In  these  lower  classes  of  humanity  the  death 
average  is  at  twenty-nine  years.  It  is  long  enough. 
But  England  dies  also  thus  young;  and  in  an  equal 
torment;  and  in  an  equal  decadence.  Why  seek  to 
evade  the  picture  ?  It  is  true.  And  of  those  who  die, 
twenty-five  per  cent,  die  in  workhouse,  jail,  asylum,  or 
some  other  place  provided  by  those  more  fortunate 
than  the  parasites  of  civilization.  Is  not  this  toll  of 
life  a  dreadful  and  terrifying  thing?  Why  deny  it? 
It  is  true. 


16  THE  SOWING 

These  poor  of  this  ancient  city — of  any  ancient 
city — are  little,  dwindled,  crooked  men,  with  no  sap 
in  their  blood,  no  stiffness  in  their  bones.  Britons 
never  will  be  slaves  ?  Is  that  true  ?  They  are  slaves 
to-day. 

No  nation  is  stronger  than  its  average  man. 
These  men  may  go  to  the  Army  or  Navy.  Yes,  and 
might  be  glad  to  go,  for  then  they  would  have  food 
with  less  certainty  of  death  than  they  have  where 
they  are  now — in  this  battle  where  defeat  and  death 
are  foregone.  But  in  the  Army  or  Navy  in  time  they 
would  meet  the  product  of  a  newer  and  a  cleaner 
world  where  food  for  the  ancestors  had  been  more 
abundant,  where  oxygen  had  been  more  unstinted, 
where  exercise  had  been  more  usual.  The  result  of 
that  meeting  is  written  now.  Why  deny  it?  It  is 
true.  Let  us  not  deny  it.  Let  us  see  if  we  cannot 
take  away  the  truth. 

The  hope  of  England  rots,  dies,  stifles,  reeks  in 
the  alleys  of  her  cities.  No  part  of  the  Orient  is  worse. 
No  human  beings  are  lower  in  the  scale  of  life  than 
here,  in  England,  ancient  and  proud. 

This  product  of  the  London  slums  cannot  be  saved 
at  all.  Its  only  Kis'met  is  death.  No  colony  could 
take  such  offerings  free.  Canada  rightly  resents  the 


Photo  by  Gribiiyedoff. 


What  Son  for  this  Father  ? 


THE  VERY  POOR  17 

introduction  of  such  units  into  her  population.  To 
give  them  to  Canada  is  only  to  transfer,  the  problem 
of  the  parasite. 

There  is  no  royal  road  to  making  a  man.  You 
must  begin  back  in  his  history.  You  must  feed  him 
for  at  least  two  generations. 

"When  we  reflect  that  the  suppression  of  a  single 
cell  at  the  critical  moment  may  change  the  direction 
of  an  axis  or  alter  the  contour  of  a  leaf,  it  is  hard  to 
set  too  high  an  estimate  upon  the  possible  response 
made  to  environmental  variations,  however  delicate. 
We  who  study  the  physiology  of  the  plant,  peer  into 
its  changing  cells,  and  strive  in  imagination  to  repro- 
duce the  marvelously  intricate  reactions — physical, 
chemical — that  forever  shift  and  play  within  those 
narrow  limits — we  need  not  be  told  that  every  cell 
has  in  it  opportunities  a  thousand  fold  to  match  and 
meet  all  the  subtle  changes  suggested  by  the  slow- 
creeping  but  implacable  forces  that  work  out  the 
physiognomy  of  this  time-worn  earth.  A  little  more 
calcium  here,  a  little  more  phosphorus  there,  sul- 
phates, nitrates,  and  the  rest,  and  the  thing  is  done! 
But,  note  you,  the  call  for  change  at  any  given  instant 
has  not  been  great;  the  slow  upheaval  of  these 
mountains,  their  peaceful  gentle  removal  by  the  winds 


18  THE  SOWING 

and  rain;  that  is  all;  but  that  has  changed  and  is 
changing  the  living  world.  Where  the  terrestrial  call 
is  rude  or  sudden,  response  there  is  none.  Nor  could 
any  sudden  initiative  on  the  part  of  the  plant  avail.  To 
vary  save  as  the  environment  varies  would  simply 
invite  disaster.  As  well  the  tadpole  suddenly  assume 
lungs  or  the  lizard  put  on  feathers." 

You  feed  your  brood  stock  on  the  farm,  because 
that  stock  costs  money.  The  human  sort  costs  only 
life — and  a  nation's  utter  ruin!  How  shall  Saxon 
human  stock  be  bred  and  fed  ?  What  is  colonization  ? 
What  should  it  mean? 

Four-fifths  of  England  live  in  towns;  one-fifth 
in  the  country.  That  is  the  way  England  deliberately 
plots  her  own  ultimate  overthrow.  It  is  her  own 
armies  that  march  against  her.  There  is  her  downfall. 
There  is  her  invasion.  What  shall  be  done  with  her 
town  dwellers  who  rot  and  die,  the  hopeless  poor,  the 
submerged  stratum  which  never  can  be  saved?  It 
were  only  a  fool  who  would  say  off-hand  that  the 
remedy  lies  in  promiscuous  colonization;  yet  only  a 
worse  fool  who  dare  say  that  it  can  lie  anywhere  else 
than  in  intelligent  colonization. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE    BLIND    LEADING    THE    BLIND. 

As  TO  what  is  intelligent  colonization,  there  is 
much  lack  of  concert  in  opinion.  Of  generalities  hung 
on  the  main  idea  we  surely  have  had  enough  and  to 
spare,  and  of  useless  or  absurd  remedies  also  enough. 
Public  needs,  public  measures  and  public  remedies 
customarily  are  reflected  by  the  intelligent  press  of 
any  country.  It  may  be  of  profit  to  hearken  for  a 
time  to  the  comment  of  the  British  press  on  the  case 
of  the  English  poor.  The  volume  of  this  comment 
has  of  late  amounted  almost  to  a  protest,  almost  to  a 
cry.  Almost  it  might  be  called  the  cry  of  a  proud  and 
stoical  people,  the  cry  of  one  wounded  deeply  and 
voicing  an  agony  so  deep  as  to  leave  no  coherent 
thought  as  to  remedy  and  only  the  one  insistent 
demand  that  there  must  be  some  remedy  offered,  and 
that  soon.  Wide  enough  are  these  different  sugges- 
tions offered  by  the  thinkers  of  the  British  press ;  but 
let  us  go  on  to  see  whether  it  is  not  fair  to  call  much  of 

this  no  more  than  a  case  of  the  blind  leading  the  blind. 

10 


20  THE  SOWING 

First  come  the  well-meant  endeavors  of  the 
wealthy  classes,  usually  ready  enough  with  philan- 
thropy as  they  understand  it.  In  the  fall  of  1908 
many  London  journals  made  an  appeal  to  London 
society  to  assist  England's  starving  unemployed. 
Mrs.  Asquith,  wife  of  the  Premier,  with  the  Duchess 
of  Norfolk,  Mrs.  Humphrey  Ward  and  other  well- 
known  English  women  besought  the  comfortable 
classes  to  contribute  their  personal  service  to  the 
relief  of  the  poor.  "They  ask  for  volunteers  to  visit 
regularly  the  starving  unemployed  in  their  homes  and 
offer  their  services  as  friends  and  helpers.  This  is  the 
first  manifestation  of  the  fact  that  society  is  beginning 
to  give  ah  ear  to  the  clamor  of  the  foodless  army  of 
unemployed  for  help.  The  appeal  is  receiving  wide- 
spread attention,  and  an  army  of  volunteers  soon  will 
be  enrolled  under  the  banner  of  these  society  leaders 
who  have  taken  the  initiative  in  determining  to  help 
the  poor,  no  matter  whether  the  government  does  or 
not.  It  is  estimated  that  there  are  80,000  heads  of 
families  now  unemployed  in  London  alone." 

Most  excellent,  and  most  futile!  These  society 
leaders  may  salve  a  conscience.  They  do  not  solve  a 
problem.  Listen  on  to  the  story  of  the  press: 

"England  is  face  to  face  with  the  most  serious 


THE  BLIND  LEADING  THE  BLIND  21 

condition  of  unemployment  in  her  history,  and  unless 
relief  is  provided  on  an  unprecedented  scale  during 
the  coming  winter,  bread  riots  may  be  expected  in 
many  of  the  principal  cities.  Already  mutterings  of 
discontent  have  been  heard,  and  in  Glasgow,  at  least, 
bloodshed  was  only  prevented  by  the  prompt  action 
of  the  authorities  in  yielding  to  the  demands  of  the 
workless  men  and  starting  relief  work." 

Did  manufactured  work  ever  help  a  workless  man  ? 
That  is  charity  under  other  name.  Shoveling  snow 
or  breaking  rock  does  not  feed  families  regularly ;  and 
when  families  are  not  fed,  regularly  fed,  nations  go 
to  pieces.  Note  that  it  was  not  a  Yankee  but  a 
British  newspaper  which  printed  this  comment,  un- 
pleasantly, but  scientifically,  true: 

"It  fails  to  be  noted  in  England  that  want,  and 
hunger  and  distress,  are  only  the  surface  ills  which 
attach  to  unemployment.  These  may  be,  and  are, 
quite  sufficiently  harrowing,  but  the  unemployment 
season  brings  more  deadly  evils.  It  brings  the 
mental,  moral  and  physical  deterioration,  the  subtle, 
terrible  process  of  degradation,  which  converts  honest 
and  able  workmen  into  spiritless  and  incapable 
wastrels." 

Let  us  dismiss  from  our  minds  all  thought  of  this 


22  THE  SOWING 

or  the  other  party  in  government  when  we  go  yet 
deeper  into  this  question.  It  is  not  a  matter  of 
politics  when  an  evil  is  too  large  even  for  a  country's 
best  statesmanship.  It  is  not  a  question  of  the  party 
in  or  out  of  power.  It  is  a  question  of  the  man  out  of 
work.  It  presented  itself  last  fall  in  Parliament  as 
below,  still  according  to  the  British  press: 

"In  announcing  in  the  House  of  Commons  the 
Government  measures  for  the  relief  of  the  unemployed 
during  the  winter,  Premier  Asquith  described  them 
as  a  'temporary  anodyne'.  Other  less  kindly  critics 
rung  all  changes  of  dissatisfaction  from  'hand  to 
mouth'  to  'entirely  inadequate'.  There  were  influ- 
ences strongly  in  favor  of  Socialistic  legislation.  The 
theory  of  the  right  to  work  was  upheld  as  a  tenet  of 
the  new  Liberal  faith. 

"Calculations  have  been  made  to  show  that  the 
number  of  unemployed  in  the  United  Kingdom  is 
likely  to  amount  to  some  645,000.  Mr.  Asquith's 
emergency  measures  provided  work  for  about  45,000, 
or  one  in  fifteen.  The  other  fourteen  he  purposes  to 
leave  to  the  charity  of  the  municipalities  and  to 
private  effort. 

"The  idea  is  held  by  a  great  number  that  Mr. 
Asquith  has  gone  another  step  farther  towards  the 


THE  BLIND  LEADING  THE  BLIND  23 

pauperization  of  the  country.  It  is  pointed  out  that 
vast  sums  are  spent  chaotically  on  all  sorts  of  popu- 
larized distress,  but  it  is  doubtful  if  real  value  is 
obtained  for  them. 

"The  poor-relief  expenditure  has  grown  to  the 
annual  amount  of  £14,000,000.  The  old-age  pension 
which  is  being  incurred  will  raise  it  in  the  near  future 
to  £10,000,000  more.  Municipal  expenditure  on  the 
unemployed  will  this  year  reach  considerably  over  a 
million;  and  probably  £5,000,000  is  expended  in 
private  charity  annually.  Altogether  there  is  a  total 
of  about  £30,000,000,  which  properly  applied,  ought 
to  preclude  the  possibility  of  a  hungry  man,  woman 
or  child  being  found  in  the  country." 

Thirty  million  pounds!  One  hundred  and  fifty 
million  dollars,  say,  to  feed  men  who  cannot  feed 
themselves!  So  large  a  sum  might  salve  a  nation's 
conscience?  I  do  not  know.  What  I  know  is  that  it 
does  not  solve  a  nation's  problem. 

In  the  "Small  Holdings  Act"  an  attempt  was 
made  to  start  a  reverse  tide,  and  to  induce  city  men 
to  go  back  to  English  acres.  The  press,  or  part  of 
the  British  press,  had  this  to  say  as  to  that  attempt, 
in  the  form  of  an  open  letter  to  Lord  Carrington : 

"In  the  columns  of  a  leading  London  daily  the 


24  THE  SOWING 

following  list  was  given  as  an  illustration  of  the  status 
of  applicants  for  small  holdings  in  a  Shropshire 
village:  Commission  agent,  farm  laborer,  'working 
chap,'  baker  and  grocer,  bricklayer,  shoemaker, 
retired  miner  and  innkeeper. 

"If  the  land  wants  of  the  above  were  granted, 
seven  agricultural  laborers  would  be  severed  from  the 
land  to  make  room  for  the  shoemaker,  bricklayer, 
etc.,  etc.  A  well-equipped  farm  is  a  manufactory  of 
corn  and  meat,  and  a  twentieth  century  farmer 
requires  science  at  his  finger  ends.  What  does  a 
miner  or  commission  agent  know  of  the  nitrogen, 
phosphates,  or  alkalies  necessary  for  the  growing  of 
corn  or  roots?  Your  lordship,  the  Small  Holdings 
Act  is  born  a  hundred  years  too  late." 

Yes,  it  is  antiquated  and  hopeless  by  more  than 
a  century,  and  so  are  many  other  remedies  proposed 
off  hand.  Even  Mr.  Winston  Churchill,  in  his  general 
capacity  of  Divine  Providence,  admits  the  difficulty 
of  the  problem.  All  in  all,  the  best  that  the  best  of 
England  has  been  able  to  devise  in  answer  has  been — 
Canada! 

There  have  been  hundreds  of  columns  printed  in 
the  British  press  on  Canadian  emigration,  and  it  is 
simply  astounding  to  contemplate  the  utter  futility 


Photo  hy  Gribayedoff. 

What  Daughter  for  this  Mother 


THE  BLIND  LEADING  THE  BLIND  25 

of  most  of  that  writing.  So  much,  so  very  much  of 
it,  amounts  only  to  large  and  naive  selfishness,  so 
much  more  to  vague  generalities,  so  much  again  to  a 
hope,  a  wish,  a  desire,  advanced  with  ill-considered 
zeal  and  not  with  matured  and  careful  pondering  as 
a  practical  remedy.  Of  all  these  many  thousand 
views,  we  may  pause  at  this  point  to  quote  but  a  few 
as  typical. 

"Those  doles  may  stave  off  hunger  from  a  certain 
number  of  unemployed/  But  their  effect  upon  the 
even  more  terrible  feature  of  unemployment — de- 
gradation— will  not  be  in  the  least  degree  helpful; 
while  the  benefits  to  be  derived  from  the  doles  will 
be  confined  to  a  few  hours  or  days.  And  while  this 
lamentable  state  of  things  continues  through  the 
Home  season  of  unemployment,  millions  of  acres  of 
rich,  timbered  lands  in  Oversea  parts  of  the  Empire, 
which  require  only  the  axe,  the  plough,  and  man's 
service  to  convert  them  into  prosperous  home  farms 
for  hundreds  of  thousands  of  good  citizens,  will  con- 
tinue to  lie  idle  till,  gradually,  they  have  attracted 
the  adventurous  or  unemployed  from  foreign  coun- 
tries. There  are  two  main  lessons  to  be  drawn  from 
this  dismal  contrast:  (1)  The  interest  of  the  British 
taxpayer,  the  British  Empire,  and  the  unemployed 


26  THE  SOWING 

themselves,  alike  demand  that  every  pound  spent  in 
the  relief  of  distress  arising  from  unemployment 
should  be  made  reproductive  and  permanently 
helpful.  (2)  The  Home  authorities  should  take 
counsel  with  their  Oversea  colleagues,  with  a  view 
to  bringing  together  honest  British  jnen  who  want 
work  and  fertile  British  lands  which  want  workmen." 

It  sounds  trippingly  on  the  tongue,  does  it  not? 
Here  is  the  same  thing  again : 

"If  we  as  a  nation  could  only  realize  it,  there,  in 
those  fertile  regions,  is  a  solution  to  many  of  the  most 
pressing  national  ills  that  bear  so  heavily  on  the 
shoulders  of  the  Old  Country.  Here  at  home  is  con- 
gestion, with  the  consequent  evils  of  remorseless 
competition  and  'sweating',  while  in  those  new  coun- 
tries are  broad  acres  of  virgin  soil  waiting  to  yield  a 
full  measure  of  reward  of  industry.  Here,  the  con- 
ditions are  those  which  govern  a  multitude — circum- 
scribed, defined  to  the  last  degree;  there,  are  the 
circumstances  which  call  for  initiative — for  the 
development  of  characteristics  of  independence  and 
manliness.  Here,  the  most  subtle  efforts  of  statesmen 
have  failed  to  discover  solutions  to  social  problems  of 
the  most  common  and  familiar  character,  and  so  a 
willing  man  may  not  work ;  there,  in  Greater  Britain, 


THE  BLIND  LEADING  THE  BLIND  27 

is  work  and  reward  for  every  healthy  man  and  woman. 
What  is  it  that  keeps  apart  the  man  and  the  oppor- 
tunity? It  costs  England  more  to  keep  an  unem- 
ployed and  degenerating  man  and  wife  and  children 
in  this  country  than  it  would  to  start  such  a  family  in 
a  new  country,  where,  morally  and  socially,  they  must 
improve  their  position. 

"There  are  several  millions  in  this  country  of  ours 
who  are  a  burden  to  the  community  through  no  fault 
of  their  own,  who  await  the  opportunity  that  a 
government  that  appreciated  the  resources  of  the 
empire  might  give  them.  Our  colonies  are  crying 
out  for  people,  and  here  we  have  millions  who  are 
crying  out  for  employment.  Surely  a  healthy  Bri- 
tisher in  a  British  Colony  is  of  more  value  to  the 
nation  than  any  member  of  an  unemployed  pro- 
cession. Why,  therefore,  cannot  we  co-operate  liber- 
ally with  the  colonies  in  peopling  their  lands,  and,  at 
the  same  time,  bring  about  a  healthier  condition  of 
employment  at  home?  It  may  be  an  expensive 
business  to  us,  for  the  colonies  would  not  accept  our 
surplus  population  as  paupers,  but  it  would  undoubt- 
edly be  much  cheaper  in  the  long  run  than  providing, 
as  at  present,  for  unemployed." 

And  yet  again:    "The  Oversea  States  take  our 


28  THE  SOWING 

best  men,  the  very  pick  of  our  agricultural  population, 
the  most  energetic  and  enterprising  of  our  young 
artisans.  We  certainly  do  not  grudge  them  these 
ready-made  good  citizens.  But  we  cannot  help 
wishing  that  they  would  exhibit  less  reluctance  to 
accepting  a  larger  proportion  of  those  whom  we  could 
with  great  advantage  spare.  The  most  urgent 
domestic  problem  before  Great  Britain  at  the  present 
moment  is  to  cope  with  the  vast  mass  of  unemployed 
or  partially  unemployed  laborers.  It  does  really 
seem  as  if  the  Oversea  States  might  help  us  in  dealing 
with  this  class,  and  at  the  same  time  help  themselves. 
Beyond  the  seas  there  is  too  much  imperfectly  occu- 
pied land;  here  in  Great  Britain  there  are  too  many 
inadequately  filled  stomachs,  each  associated  with  a 
pair  of  partly  idle  hands.  These  things  might  be 
considered  in  relation  to  one  another.  We  want 
something  more  effectual  than  the  transfer  of  a 
limited  number  of  highly  respectable  persons  from 
employment  in  England  to  employment  in  Canada  or 
Australia.  Not,  of  course,  that  we  suggest  to  the  colo- 
nists that  they  should  provide  a  free  dumping  ground 
for  our  human  refuse.  But  if  our  Oversea  kinsfolk 
would  share  this  burden  with  us,  they  would  in  due 
course  obtain  their  reward.  They  would  convert 


THE  BLIND  LEADING  THE  BLIND  29 

many  thousands  of  unfortunate  'casuals'  into  useful, 
self-supporting  workers,  and  they  would  find  their 
own  waste  territories  developing  at  a  much  faster 
rate  than  is  at  all  probable  under  present  conditions. 
The  process,  intelligently  carried  out,  would  bless  us 
at  home  who  give  this  now  unrealized  labor  force, 
and  the  people  Overseas  who  take  it  and  convert  it 
into  effective  energy." 

A  chance  phrase  here  and  there  in  the  foregoing 
indicates  admission  of  the  truth  that  not  in  coloniza- 
tion merely,  but  in  intelligent  colonization  lies  the 
desired  remedy  for  a  vast  ill.  Books  wiser  than  this 
could  be  and  will  be  written  in  discussion  of  the 
question.  What  is  intelligent  colonization?  Let  us 
now,  therefore,  resume  our  own  argument  as  to  that 
question,  and  so  presently  arrive  at  our  own  conclu- 
sions in  our  own  way,  accepting  in  advance  an 
adverse  judgment  if  our  premises  be  wrongly  assumed, 
or  if  our  argument  shall  not  be  logical.  Meaning  to 
be  well  tempered  and  logical,  we  also  may  set  aside 
in  advance  any  verdict  which  itself  is  illogical  or  ill- 
tempered.  What  is  the  Truth?  That  should  be  our 
first  and  only  question,  either  side  of  the  sea. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE    MASTER    OF    DESTINY. 

THE  FOCUS  in  London  is  the  result  of  all  of 
crowded  England,  the  outpourings  of  all  her  over- 
crowded acres.  The  place  to  change  the  pressure 
cannot  be  directly  along  the  line  from  slum  to  prairie ; 
because  the  prairie  demands  strength  and  not  weak- 
ness as  a  premise  for  success.  On  the  face  of  it,  this 
maybe  unwelcome  doctrine  to  crowded  England  .which 
looks  to  unpeopled  Canada  for  salvation  wholesale- 
But  how  about  Canada?  And  how  about  humanity  ? 

The  frontier  takes  the  strong.  The  new  lands  are 
the  birthright  of  the  strong.  The  heritage  of  new 
opportunities  belongs  to  the  strong.  The  strong  who 
have  moved  out  under  this  or  that  flag  into  new  lands, 
and  grown  through  touch  with  the  soil  and  sky, — these 
may  freely  laugh  at  any  boast  of  Old  England ;  they 
may  freely  laugh  at  any  claim  she  can  urge  to  warlike 
ways,  because  when  they  point,  they  point  to  Eng- 
land's cities.  Men  and  women  do  not  grow  there. 
Men  and  women  grow  like  all  other  animals — out 
of -doors.  The  British  lion,  left  unintelligently  caged 

30 


THE  MASTER  OF  DESTINY  31 

in  cities,  will  perforce  and  inevitably  ere  long  be  a 
caged  lion,  knock-kneed,  blear-eyed,  his  claws  freely 
to  be  cut  by  any  who  may  like.  The  lion  of  Eng- 
land's colonies  is  quite  a  different  matter!  Men  grow 
there  out  of  doors.  But  as  to  England,  oldest  and 
proudest  and  steadiest  of  governments,  ancient, 
haughty,  stern  and  strong,  rich  in  worldly  goods, 
richer  still  in  the  splendid  history  of  her  prowess,  and 
yet  again  more  rich  in  her  history  of  justice, — Eng- 
land, beautiful  in  her  story  of  art  and  science  and 
literature,  all  stately  things  which  should  spell  benefit 
to  all  humanity, — what  of  her? 

Alas !  England  is  worst  of  all !  Her  very  poor 
are  the  very  poorest  of  the  earth.  Better  be  a  rice- 
eating  Hindu  dreaming  away  life  on  the  banks  of  the 
Ganges  than  one  of  the  very  poor  of  London,  greatest 
city  of  the  earth — London  the  ancient,  London  the 
horrible!  The  country  which  proudly  calls  itself 
owner  of  the  best  government  and  the  greatest  people 
of  the  globe  has  made  the  greatest  of  all  failures. 
Britain's  national  hymn  we  know  asserts,  "  Britons 
never  will  be  slaves."  Let  us  make  bold  to  assert 
that  no  song  ever  was  more  untrue  than  that.  No  use 
to  deny  the  denial.  Let  us  accept  it,  and  so  set  to 
work  to  make  the  denial  itself  untrue. 


32  .      THE  SOWING 

The  difference  between  the  outcasts  of  the  pent 
and  huddled  cities  of  any  continent,  the  difference 
between  these  hopeless  damned  and  yourself  and 
myself,  is  only  one  of  human  opportunity,  I  am  free, 
because  chance  had  it  that  I  was  born  in  America  in 
a  day  of  less  crowding  than  this.  I  read  the  pages 
telling  of  such  misery  as  is  above  described,  and  the 
remembrance  sits  on  my  soul  as  a  thing  of  horror. 
You  and  I,  if  we  were  really  free-born,  if  we  have 
really  lived  free,  cannot  read  these  things  without 
feeling  come  over  us  a  surge  of  human  sympathy. 
You  and  I,  perhaps,  are  not  able  to  live  save  through 
our  own  work;  but  at  least  fortune  has  given  us  the 
chance  to  work,  and  a  life  wide  enough  to  allow  us""to 
feel  surprise  and  horror  at  facts  such  as  these. 

Now  turn  to  another  picture, — and  a  happier,  one 
of  more  hope  and  greater  comfort.  Think  of  the 
wide  free  lands  you  and  I  have  known,  of  the  blue  sky 
sweeping  over  lands  unsodden,  unsaddened,  where 
there  were  no  ordered  streets,  but  where  only  the 
trails  ran  wandering.  "In  the  natural  environment 
of  man  there  is  a  factor  which  has  for  ages  been  silently 
operating  to  make  man  what  we  find  him, — the 
presence  of  beauty.  The  world  is  a  world  of  beauty, 
of  soft  majestic  outlines,  of  harmonious  splendor, 


The  Farmer's  Holiday 


THE  MASTER  OF  DESTINY  33 

peaceful  and  glorious  to  look  upon.  Through  a 
thousand  generations  its  waters,  its  mountains,  its 
forests,  its  plains,  nor  less  its  individual  trees  and 
grasses  and  flowers,  have  brought  to  man  a  perpetual 
environment  of  beauty.  To  this  he  has  become 
adapted.  Take  away  the  physical  beauty  of  the 
world,  and  man's  better  nature,  his  human  nature,  his 
esthetic  nature,  starves  and  dies;  all  the  light  of  joy 
and  affection  disappears,  and  man  sinks  to  the  level 
of  the  breathing  mammal;  and  the  purpose  of  the 
world  is  vain."  Thus  a  scientist,  a  thinker. 

See  the  stately  cathedral  of  the  forest,  and  hear 
again  the  organ  march  of  the  winds  in  the  pines. 
Without  this  the  purpose  of  the  world  is  vain.  Pause 
to  restore  in  memory  the  breath  of  free  prairie  winds ; 
reflect  on  hours  of  freedom  in  the  saddle,  in  the  canoe, 
with  axe  or  rifle  or  plough,  at  the  far  edge  of  things. 
Review  visions  of  many  low-lying  happy  homes  in  the 
new  countries,  homes  far  apart,  but  each  taking  hold 
strongly  upon  the  soil  and  upon  life,  each  with  its 
red  comfortable  hearth  fire — some  comfortable  red 
Saxon  hearth  fire  at  eventime.  Without  these  the 
purpose  of  the  world  indeed  is  vain. 

Home! — at  least  I  have  had  so  much  as  that. 
You,  I  hope,  have  had  so  much  as  that.  But  had 


34  THE  SOWING 

our  fate  been  birth  in  these  older  and  unspeakable 
surroundings,  then  no  matter  how  much  we  heard  of 
the  sweetness  of  the  world  of  opportunity  beyond, 
we  could  not  have  reached  that  world,  for  we  had  lacked 
means  to  make  the  step,  had  lacked  intelligence  to 

V. 

guide  us,  had  lacked  the  final  fillip  of  initiative  from 
some  one  stronger,  not  yet  pulled  down  by  the  crowd 
of  a  massed  and  mistaken  humanity.  For  us,  also, 
had  we  been  so  situated,  the  purpose  of  the  world  had 
indeed  been  vain !  I  boast  not  my  ancestry,  save  that 
it  was  clean  as  any,  and  so  as  good  as  any.  I  boast 
not  my  wealth,  for  it  is  little;  nor  my  wit,  for  it  is 
less.  But  that  for  which  I  thank  God  is  that  I  was 
born  in  an  environment  where  I  had  a  chance  to  work, 
and  so  a  chance  to  grow.  I  am  not  a  Socialist,  nor 
ever  can  be.  But  for  every  fellow,  in  all  the  world, 
I  wish  the  wish  that  one  day  he  may  thank  God  for 
that  same  sort  of  chance.  Then,  if  he  will  not  take 
it,  may  God  damn  him — as  truly  and  surely  He  will — 
to  extinction  and  oblivion. 

"But  for  God's  grace,"  said  Bunyan,  when  he  saw 
a  hopeless  one  pass,  "there  goes  John  Bunyan."  But 
for  God's  grace,  there  might  have  been  you  and  I  of 
this  New  World, — where  all  we  could  have  done  would 
have  been  to  beat  at  the  bars,  at  last  either  to  curse 


THE  MASTER  OF  DESTINY  35 

God  and  die,  or  to  sink  back  into  an  apathy  worse 
than  death — worse  than  death  either  for  a  man  or 
for  a  nation. 

The  richest  man  risen  from  the  ranks  in  any  new 
country  ought  not  to  vaunt  himself  too  much.  Had 
his  environment  laid  him  a  little  more  firmly  by  the 
heels  he  might  not  have  risen.  Ah,  we  boast  of  our 
success,  our  strength,  we  who  may  at  least  eat  as  we 
wish,  and  sleep  warm  of  nights.  We  ascribe  our 
successes  to  ourselves,  comfortably  egotistical.  What 
is  the  truth  about  it?  The  truth  is  that  we  found 
opportunity.  We  did  not  create  it. .. 

And  yet  all  the  new  countries  are  a  perpetual 
reproach  to  this  manner  of  misgovernment,  this  sort 
of  mishandling  of  humanity.  The  answer  to  all  this 
is  Opportunity.  The  human  plant,  pale  and  sickly 
and  overcrowded  in  a  hotbed,  needs  at  a  certain  time 
to  be  transplanted  into  an  untouched  soil  and  under 
a  broad  natural  sky. 

Back  to  the  land!  That  is  the  answer  to  the 
despair,  the  apathy,  the  decadence  of  the  city,  as  it 
is  the  answer  also  to  the  hopelessness  of  an  over- 
crowded rural  life.  More  land!  More  room!  That, 
with  no  manner  of  doubt,  is  the  answer  of  today  to 
those  who  dare  not  hope. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

CANADA. 

NATIONAL  pride  comes  into  the  make-up  of  us  all. 
Each  dominant  nation  feels  that  it  has  divine  right 
to  all  the  earth;  and  so  indeed,  under  the  most 
ancient  of  all  law,  it  has — if  it  can  take  it.  Against 
the  latter  proposition  militate  many  grave  forces — 
geography,  heredity,  opportunity,  the  will  of  other 
peoples.  The  distribution  of  the  ownership  of  the 
earth's  surface  is  a  purely  arbitrary  thing,  indeed  an 
amusing  thing  if  one  stop  to  reason  about  the  matter. 
But  the  stubborn  truth  remains  always  that  some 
parts  of  the  earth's  surface  are  different  from  others. 
There  remains  also  the  ancient  truth  that  it  is  the 
creature  which  changes,  and  not  the  environment, 
when  it  finds  a  new  environment  in  climate,  soil,  life, 
surroundings. 

Generations  hence,  England  still  may  be  ruling 
Canada.  The  unthinkable  reverse  may  perhaps  one 
day  be  true.  If  that  seem  unthinkable,  at  least  we 

36 


CANADA  37 

all  may  and  must  agree  that  no  law  and  no  govern- 
ment will  avail  to  leave  Canada  like  England,  nor 
Canadians  like  Englishmen.  Britons,  transplanted 
from  the  hotbeds  of  the  old  country  to  the  fields  of 
the  new,  will  have  become  wholly  unlike  the  English- 
men they  once  were.  They  will  have  become 
Americans ;  which  is  to  say,  products  of  the  peculiar 
conditions  of  this  North  American  continent — which, 
as  well  as  Europe,  was  created  once  upon  a  time. 
Natural  environment  will  work  its  way,  far  more  than 
any  government  can  have  its  way.  In  fifty  years 
Canada  will  perhaps  and  probably  resemble  the 
United  States  more  than  it  will  resemble  England. 
That  fact  should  offer  no  exultation  and  no  grumbling 
in  contemplation.  It  is  not  a  theory  of  government, 
but  of  geography,  of  environment.  The  great  thing  of 
interest  is  that  Canada  will  have  offered  meantime 
to  the  world  just  what  the  world  has  needed  and  at 
the  time  it  has  most  needed  it — Opportunity. 

The  story  of  Canada  also,  since  it  falls  in  these 
swift  modern  days  of  rapid  transportation  and 
perfect  inter-communication,  will  of  course  far  more 
resemble  the  story  of  the  United  States  than  the  story 
of  Old  England.  Swift  development,  general  free- 
dom, equality  and  openness  of  opportunity — these 


38  THE  SOWING 

things  come  from  a  purely  geographical  situation. 
It  is  latitude  and  longitude  alone  which  always  rule 
and  which  never  can  be  dethroned.  While  it  may 
hurt  English  pride  to  admit  it,  none  the  less  it  would 
be  best  for  Englishmen  and  for  humanity  did  Canada 
in  the  future  less  resemble  in  some  smug  ways  England 
than  the  Republic  to  the  southward — or  rather,  let 
us  say,  what  that  Republic  was  intended  to  be  and 
might  have  been,  and  ought  to  have  been. 

It  is  Canada's  opportunity  to  show,  what  the 
United  States  does  not  show,  a  reverence  for  the  law 
and  for  justice;  and  at  the  same  time  to  show,  what 
England  does  not  offer,  a  readiness  to  meet  and 
master  new  and  interesting  problems  of  swift  modern 
civilization.  It  is  not  the  question  whether  England 
does  or  does  not  like  this  other  continent  and  its  ways. 
Canada  will  grow,  with  or  without  England.  The 
expansion  will  go  on.  Government  makes  not  so 
much  difference  to  man  as  does  his  daily  bread. 
"  Ubi  bene,  ibi  patria," — where  a  man  prospers,  there 
is  his  country.  Men  will  make  their  way  along  the 
lines  of  least  resistance,  as  all  organic  life  progresses. 
It  is  not  the  question  how  much  England  can  control 
Canada.  The  great  question  is,  of  how  much  use  can 
Canada  be  to  England  in  the  way  of  opportunity? 


CANADA  39 

Beyond  that  all  the  answers  will  come,  not  through 
this  or  that  political  party,  this  or  that  system  of 
government,  but  through  the  working  of  the  law  of 
environment.  The  great  truth  is  that,  one  extreme 
against  the  other,  the  lot  of  the  average  man  is  better 
in  Canada  than  it  is  in  England.  England  is  the  one 
to  profit  by  that  truth,  and  not  to  grow  muddled  in 
her  grumbling  over  it.  Of  how  much  use  may  Canada 
and  England  be  to  the  world!  Let  us  ponder  over 
that. 

Once  a  part  of  the  same  mid-continental  tract, 
Canada  and  the  United  States  lay  side  by  side, 
separated  only  by  the  imaginary  line  of  latitude,  and 
differing  only  as  latitude  made  them  different.  One 
has  progressed  swiftly,  the  other  very  slowly.  This 
difference  ought  not  to  be  ascribed  wholly  to  differ- 
ences in  governmental  system.  It  was  in  part  topo- 
graphical. The  lower  country  was  the  richer  in  total 
natural  resources ;  although  the  profile  lines  describ- 
ing all  these  things  would  lap  here  and  there  in  the 
story  of  either  country.  The  United  States  has 
become  a  country  with  over  eighty  millions  of 
population  as  against  the  seven  millions  of  Canada! 
Its  wealth  is  much  greater,  it  is  far  more  of  a  world 
power  than  Canada  alone  can  claim  to  be.  Where 


40  THE  SOWING 

was  the  mistake — in  the  separation  of  the  United 
States  from  England,  or  in  the  separation  of  Canada 
from  the  United  States?  It  is  interesting  when 
Englishmen  and  Americans  argue  this  pretty  question ! 
Yet  nature  really  settled  most  of  that  before  English- 
men or  Americans  were  born. 

Between  the  two  old  colonies  there  was  little  differ- 
ence save  an  imaginary  one,  a  splitting  of  hairs  over 
a  long-forgotten  matter  of  taxes  and  no  representation 
— the  same  thing  on  which  Canada  insists  in  her 
scheme  of  government  to-day!  When  England  was 
at  war  with  France,  it  was  the  American  colonies 
which  aided  her.  French  Canada  was  gained  partly 
or  largely  through  "Yankee"  help.  Sir  Gilbert 
Parker  has  it  that  a  "Yankee"  found  the  way  up  the 
Heights  of  Abraham  for  General  Wolfe  in  the  battle 
which  took  Quebec  and  Canada!  Around  this  he 
writes  a  great  novel  of  brotherhood.  Let  England 
look  to  her  historic  laurels,  and  above  all,  let  her  be 
just ;  because  presently  we  shall  show,  with  indisput- 
able proof,  that  a  second  time,  and  not  long  ago,  it 
was  a  "Yankee"  who  showed  the  way  for  England 
to  take  a  newer  and  greater  Canada,  which  she  had 
not  yet  won — and  of  whose  existence  she  did  not  dream! 

There  is  no  more  than  a  faint  line  between  the 


CANADA  41 

United  States  and  Canada  to-day;  and  what  is  still 
better,  there  is  but  a  faint  line  between  either  and 
England  herself  to-day,  a  line  annually  growing  yet 
narrower  and  fainter.  Closer  and  closer  together 
grow  these  three  great  regions  of  the  world,  England, 
Canada  and  the  United  States.  Almost  we  might 
say  that  the  greatest  of  these  is  the  least  of  these; 
because  more  and  more  urgent  each  year  become 
the  problems  of  the  poor,  of  the  men  who  need  room 
as  their  fathers  found  it  before  them;  and  Canada 
alone  has  room. 

History,  geography,  government,  turn  their  faces 
now  toward  Canada.  The  free  lands  of  the  United 
States  have  been  over-run  by  an  eager  population. 
There  is  little  cheap  land  left  in  that  country  now, 
and  none  too  much  honesty  in  its  disposition.  In 
parts  of  the  United  States  land  is  as  high  as  it  is  in 
England.  What  hope  is  there  in  any  of  the  older 
countries  either  side  the  Atlantic,  for  the  poor,  for 
the  very  poor? 

But  all  this  time,  while  mixed  populations  rushed 
across  the  Atlantic,  regardless  of  theories  of  govern- 
ment— as  though  any  governmental  theory  were  of 
weight  against  the  sombre  intent  of  humanity; — 
as  the  human  wave  flooded  along  the  lines  of  least 


42  THE  SOWING 

resistance,  there  lay  Canada,  unknown  and  unused, 
waiting  until  the  day  of  need.  Canada  was  the 
savings  bank  of  opportunity  for  the  world.  Was  not 
America  also?  Yes,  once.  But  the  banking  was 
done  on  lines  partly  "wildcat,"  in  ill-advised  haste,  in 
absence  of  all  conservatism.  To-day,  as  consequence, 
the  United  States  is  busy  enough  with  Old  World 
problems. 

No  one  knew  about  Canada.  She  was  shrouded 
in  ignorance;  and,  of  course,  the  impossible  and 
Homeric  truth  is  that  this  was  an  ignorance  deliber- 
ately fostered.  An  adventurous  but  unprogressive 
French  population  long  had  clung  to  the  eastern 
regions  of  the  Dominion,  sending  out  scouts  and 
couriers  to  the  western  wildernesses  of  pines  and 
prairies,  but  not  preempting  them.  Farther  to  the 
west  lay  the  realm  of  the  ancient  Hudson's  Bay  Com- 
pany, indefinite,  mysterious.  The  most  splendid 
monopoly  of  the  world,  it  held  its  serene  way  for  more 
than  two  centuries.  It  crossed  this  continent  in  its 
march,  and  it  gave  England  her  strongest  argument 
for  the  possession  of  more  of  the  Pacific  coast  than  she 
holds  to-day.  The  story  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Com- 
pany is  not  repellant ;  it  is  magnificent  in  many  ways. 
Back  of  it  was  a  splendid  sloth,  the  magnificent 


CANADA  43 

indifference  and  ignorance  of  strength — of  Old  Eng- 
land itself.  While  that  slow  story  was  unfolding, 
through  national  expansion  abroad  and  national 
crowding  and  narrowing  at  home,  there  grew  in 
numbers  the  poor,  the  very  poor,  those  fallen  and 
discarded  petals  of  a  great  nation's  flowering. 

Canada  long  was  a  land  of  romance  and  not  of 
industry.  The  bold  deeds  of  her  voyageurs  made 
interesting  reading  for  men  in  the  older  world.  There 
lay  the  wilderness  in  all  its  appeal,  but  none  thought 
of  it  as  else  than  a  wilderness.  Mackenzie  and 
Thompson  and  Fraser,  Harmon  and  Hearne  and  the 
two  Alexanders — scores  of  bold  souls — crossed  this 
wide  continent  by  boat  and  saddle,  flitting  freely  as 
birds  here  and  there,  hundreds  of  years  ago';  and  they 
wrote  that  others  might  read.  But  they  wrote  of  furs 
and  Indians,  of  fire-arms  and  fire-water,  and  not  of 
industry  of  any  ordered  sort. 

Came  then  the  days  of  sportsmen,  many  men  of 
Old  England  faring  west  in  the  regions  where  ploughs 
now  run;  and  these  told  of  what  they  saw.  One  of 
these  was  Lord  Southesk,  who  wrote  some  fifty  years 
ago  of  his  sporting  pilgrimage  to  the  Canadian  plains 
and  mountains.  Southesk  reached  Winnipeg  after 
passing  through  the  United  States  to  St.  Paul,  and 


44  THE  SOWING 

traveling  thence  north  through  Manitoba.  He  found 
little  in  the  civilization  of  the  American  Republic  to 
afford  him  interest,  yet  was  good  enough  to  foresee 
the  advantages  of  possible  colonization  of  the  western 
Canadian  plains;  although  apparently  he  overlooked 
all  intervening  stages  between  the  buffalo  plains  and 
the  green  hedges  of  Old  England!  He  did  not  know 
that  generations  must  elapse,  even  such  swift  genera- 
tions as  those  of  to-day,  before  the  full  miracle  of 
what  we  call  civilization  can  be  wrought  all  through 
a  vast  new  region  late  an  utter  wilderness. 

Southesk  passed  up  the  valley  of  the  Assiniboine, 
and  along  its  tributary  stream,  the  Qu'Appelle  River, 
and  found  much  of  his  best  buffalo  hunting  near  what 
is  now  known  as  the  Last  Mountain  Valley,  always  a 
famous  hunting  ground  in  Indian  days;  whence  he 
passed  on  into  the  Rockies.  But  Southesk  used  the 
same  trail,  fifty  years  ago,  which  you  may  see  to-day 
written  deep  in  the  soil  of  the  great  plains  of  the 
Saskatchewan,  the  ancient  trail  of  the  Red  River  carts 
of  the  half-breeds. 

Southesk  seemed  not  to  ponder  much  on  transpor- 
tation, but  he  did  raise  in  his  own  mind  the  big 
question  whether  some  of  this  great  new  country 
might  not  be  used  for  colonizing  purposes.  He  had 


CANADA  45 

the  vague  impression  that  this  land  might  grow  some 
product  useful  to  humanity — humanity,  to  his  insular 
mind,  of  course  meaning  only  England!  He  wrote, 
and  passed  away,  to  be  forgot.  You  scarcely  shall 
find  his  book  to-day. 

Others  came  after  the  sportsman  had  passed. 
Macoun,  observer  and  scientist,  journeyed  west  in 
1870,  and  his  description  of  the  flora  and  fauna  of  this 
vast  western  land  awoke  a  wider  interest.  Some  sort 
of  dawn  began  to  tinge  the  eastern  sky  with  gray. 
At  that  time,  however,  no  one  seriously  considered 
any  permanent  settlements  much  farther  west  than 
the  line  of  what  is  now  known  as  Manitoba.  Not  even 
the  writings  of  Sir  Sandford  Fleming  did  much  to 
enforce  a  belief  that  western  Canada  was  a  habitable 
land.  The  Heights  of  Abraham  still  lay  unsealed 
west  of  Winnipeg! 

Now  came  the  first  trans-continental  line,  the 
Canadian  Pacific  Railway,  whose  promoters  had  surely 
an  onerous  task  before  them.  But  after  all,  they 
could  not  fail.  It  was  fate  that  in  time  this  great 
crossing  of  the  continent  must  be  made  otherwise 
than  by  canoe  and  Red  River  cart.  It  was  fate  that 
Canada  at  the  proper  hour  must  open  to  the  world. 

Last  came  all  the  swift  story  of  many  railways, 


46  THE  SOWING 

threading  over  all  these  western  plains.  As  though  a 
great  and  noble  picture  were  unveiled,  western  Canada 
lay  revealed  to  the  world,  a  thing  of  unsuspected 
interest  and  beauty. 


CHAPTER  V. 

NATIVE    DAYS    IN    CANADA    WEST. 

As  RUMORS  began  to  thicken  in  regard  to  the 
possibility  of  settlements  on  these  western  plains, 
the  old  plan  of  the  Canadian  Pacific  Railway  was  to 
pass  west  up  the  Qu'Appelle  Valley,  along  the 
ancient  trail  of  the  Red  River  carts,  making  old 
Fort  Qu'Appelle,  ancient  seat  of  the  Hudson's  Bay 
Company,  and  from  time  immemorial  the  central 
capital  of  all  their  wide  plains,  the  new  capital 
of  the  province  later  to  be  known  as  Saskatchewan. 
The  exact  location  of  the  route,  as  later  deter- 
mined, was  a  matter  of  no  special  importance. 
The  great  fact  was  the  conviction  that  here  was  a 
country  at  least  worth  crossing  if  not  worth  settling. 

Opportunity  means  colonization;  and  coloniza- 
tion usually  means  the  individual  colonizer — the 
colony  built  for  personal  gain  alone.  Some  such  sort 
of  beginning  seems  inevitably  necessary  for  any 

47 


48  THE  SOWING 

colonizing  nation.  The  individual  starts;  the  nation 
follows.  It  was  not  England  that  found  South  Africa ; 
it  was  Cecil  Rhodes.  The  national  spirit  behind  the 
Canadian  Pacific  Railway  was  perhaps  as  much 
military  as  industrial;  but  this  fact  as  well  in  time 
lost  all  significance. 

Crowding  individual  enterprises  made  the  Cana- 
dian Pacific  Railway  a  purely  industrial  and  com- 
mercial highway.  But  for  the  present  purpose  this 
great  highway  serves  us  best  as  an  easy  path  back  to 
early  history,  its  locations  leading  the  student  into 
much  that  is  wholly  typical  of  western  Canada  in 
the  days  before  the  white  man  came. 

Above  the  Qu'Appelle  Valley  of  Saskatchewan, 
well  toward  its  head,  there  thrusts  up  out  of  the  level 
plain  a  considerable  elevation  or  series  of  bold  high- 
lands, known  as  the  Last  Mountain.  East  of  this 
long  range,  whose  greater  axis  runs  north  and  south, 
the  plains  again  roll  out,  flattening  into  the  level 
prairies.  West  of  the  mountain,  and  paralleling 
rudely  its  greater  axis,  runs  a  long  narrow  lake  now 
known  as  Last  Mountain  Lake,  once  called  by  the 
Indians  "Long-Lake-where-the-fork-is."  One  of  the 
most  beautiful  and  typical  panoramas  of  mountain, 
hill  and  lake,  of  plain  and  stream  and  broken  ground, 


Native  Davs 


NATIVE  DAYS  IN  CANADA  WEST  49 

to  be  found  in  western  Canada,  lies  here,  and  it  was 
always  prominent  in  Canadian  history. 

The  River  Qu'Appelle  itself  was  a  stream  of 
mystery  in  the  aboriginal  mind,  as  its  very  name 
indicates.  The  French  name  only  translates  the  old 
Indian  title.  It  was  always  the  "  River-which-calls," 
— probably  named  from  the  noises  made  by  the 
gorged  ice  sometimes  piled  up  in  the  narrow  lakes 
which  mark  parts  of  the  stream. 

The  Indians  also  ascribed  strange  qualities  to  the 
mountain  which  lies  above  the  head  of  this  valley. 
To  them  the  Last  Mountain  was  the  home  of  mys- 
terious and  generally  evil-minded  spirits.  The 
American  tribes  would  never  have  anything  to  do 
with  the  Yellowstone  Park,  and  for  some  similar 
reason  the  Canadian  Indians  looked  askance  at  Last 
Mountain.  Many  strange  things  happened  there. 
The  Indian  mind  finds  supernatural  explanations  for 
natural  phenomena;  and  when  a  country  grows  too 
strange  for  him  to  comprehend,  he  marks  it  off  his 
map  as  being  the  home  of  spirits  and  not  fit  for  him. 
The  Indian  paradise,  or  heaven, — full  of  buffalo  and 
sweet  water  and  good  fuel- — traditionally  was  located 
somewhere  near  the  head  of  the  Qu'  Appelle  Valley. 
The  Indian  Hades,  place  of  malicious  spirits,  also  was 


50  THE  SOWING 

assigned  to  these  high-rolling,  round-topped  hills, 
which  swell  up  into  Last  Mountain  range.  There  was 
fuel  here  and  plenty  of  game,  and  thinking  this 
especially  suited  for  purposes  of  an  Indian  reserva- 
tion, the  Dominion  Government  once  set  it  aside  as 
an  Indian  reserve,  but  the  tribesmen  respectfully 
declined  to  have  anything  to  do  with  it,  would  not 
live  there  or  even  hunt  there.  They  have  to  this  day 
traditions  of  volcanic  outbreak,  or  "hot  rain",  which 
long  ago  destroyed  a  whole  village  in  that  region. 

In  this  neighborhood  lay  the  best  of  the  old 
northern  buffalo  range,  and  thither  headed  the  annual 
pilgrimage  of  the  half-breeds  from  the  East,  bound 
for  a  country  where  they  could  most  easily  or  surely 
get  their  meat.  It  was  not  far  from  here  that  the 
last  buffalo  hunt  was  made,  from  which  the  breeds 
came  back  with  a  few  poor  hides,  saying  with  sorrow 
on  their  faces,  "  These  are  the  last " ;  and  so  set  them- 
selves to  face  another  era  of  the  world.  Tribes  from 
south  of  the  line  sometimes  also  came  to  hunt  in  this 
region,  just  as  American  farmers  now  come  there 
to  farm. 

A  curious  interest  always  has  attached  to  the 
country  in  the  minds  of  its  parti -colored  population. 
The  central  hills  make  a  distinct  sort  of  range,  swelling 


NATIVE  DAYS  IN  CANADA  WEST  51 

up  in  a  series  of  rounded  eminences,  among  which, 
hundreds  of  feet  above  the  level  of  the  plains,  wind 
scores  of  little  lakes  like  highland  tarns.  From  these 
summits,  looking  to  the  west  across  the  thin  silver 
line  of  the  long  lake,  one  may  see  yet  another  proof 
of  a  strange  origin  in  the  configuration  of  the  country 
— the  crests  of  strange  kopjes,  or  butte-like  mounds, 
thrusting  up  above  the  plains  seventy-five  miles 
distant  to  the  westward.  Here  in  ancient  days 
flashed  the  signal  fires  of  the  tribesmen  in  their  times 
of  war  or  hunting.  These  peaks  and  buttes,  which 
lie  not  far  from  a  little  railroad  town  to-day,  were 
used  by  the  half-breeds  as  signaling  points  in  the  Riel 
rebellion.  They  might  so  be  used  to-day;  although 
now  the  fires  would  flash  across  a  country  strangely 
and  irrevocably  changed.  As  this  shifting  central 
picture  has  changed,  so  has  all  western  Canada 
swiftly  changed,  passing  from  old  ways  to  new. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

CATTLE    DAYS    IN    CANADA    WEST. 

A  COUNTRY  does  not  soon  pass  from  nomad  to 
agricultural.  Red  nomads  are  supplanted  first  by 
white  nomads,  almost  or  quite  as  savage.  The  first 
settlers  take  with  them  but  few  ploughs.  The  old 
Hudson's  Bay  post  asked  no  more  than  a  post  garden. 
The  American  frontiersman  wanted  only  a  little 
patch  of  corn.  Herds  and  flocks  are  the  first  concern 
of  the  west-bound  on  the  American  continent.  The 
cow  man  always  has  been  the  first  citizen  after  the 
hunter,  the  trader  and  the  frontiersman. 

In  his  way  the  Canadian  cow  man  was  as  stubborn , 
as  exclusive,  as  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  itself. 
The  cow  man  wants  range.  He  detests  fences.  He 
cannot  afford  to  run  cattle  over  ground  that  will 
raise  anything  but  grass;  so,  loudly  and  stoutly  and 
continuously,  he  declared  that  this  country  of  Canada 
West  would  raise  nothing  but  grass.  The  early 
ranchers  who  moved  in  their  spotted  buffalo  through 

52 


CATTLE  DAYS  IN  CANADA  WEST.  53 

the  McDonald  Hills,  the  Touchwood  Hills,  the  Last 
Mountain  ranges,  over  all  the  breaks  and  coulees  and 
flat  levels  on  both  sides  of  the  Qu'Appelle  Valley — 
all  over  Saskatchewan  and  Alberta,  indeed, — did  not 
want  anyone  to  believe  that  the  soil  would  raise 
anything  but  grass.  The  fiction  of  an  icy  and  inhos- 
pitable North,  incapable  of  supporting  a  population, 
stoutly  was  fostered  and  furthered  by  the  hardy 
cattle  men  who  first  took  over  the  country  after  the 
red  hunters  had  left  it. 

Cattle  days  in  Canada  were  but  little  in  advance 
of  trading  and  hunting  days.  Not  even  the  round-up 
was  a  thing  of  system  at  first.  The  cow  man  could 
not  accurately  estimate  his  herd.  Fences  he  had 
none.  Commonly  his  house  was  a  hovel,  digged  into 
the  side  of  a  hill,  or  perhaps  more  ambitiously  con- 
structed of  poles  and  mud.  It  was  long  before  the 
average  cow  man  reached  the  dignity  of  stone  or  sawn 
boards.  By  that  time  he  was  a  baron,  able  the  more 
strongly  to  dispute  the  claims  of  men  practicing  the 
religion  of  the  plough.  Such  as  he  was,  however, 
early  or  late,  savage  or  semi-savage,  he  filled  all  the 
wide  ranges  of  Saskatchewan,  as  once  he  filled  the 
trans-Missouri  in  the  American  Republic.  This  cow 
man  was  the  second,  but  not  the  last  white  man  to 


54  THE  SOWING 

come.  His  cattle  vanished  in  part  when  the  clack 
of  the  self-binder  began  in  wide  fields  of  yellow  grain, 
which  grew  where  grass  had  been. 

Lately  much  of  central  Saskatchewan  was,  for  the 
purposes  of  careful  study,  visited  by  the  writer,  in  the 
course  of  a  journey  some  hundreds  of  miles  in  extent. 
It  was  a  pleasant  experience  in  a  pleasant  land. 
There  lay  the  earth,  in  some  part  still  free  and  unsub- 
dued. There  was  the  old  familiar  sweep  of  the  plains 
and  the  sky,  the  expanses  of  open  waters,  the  beauties 
of  the  hills, — all  the  spell  of  wild  lands  not  yet  tram- 
meled by  civilization.  We  saw  the  native  grasses 
which  the  buffalo  once  cropped,  not  yet  replaced  by 
those  which  follow  the  white  man  westward.  Here 
were  the  shrubs  and  flowers,  the  nodding  plumes  of 
the  prairies,  dotting  the  wide  carpet  of  the  grasses; 
and  across  these,  meeting  no  obstruction,  wound  here 
and  there  the  vague  trails  of  the  prairie,  showing  the 
wandering  imprint  of  uncharted  vehicles;  new  trails, 
quite  apart  from  the  deep-set  grooves  of  the  old  Red 
River  carts. 

Dearest  of  all  prairie  pictures,  one  might  see  here 
again,  and  almost  for  the  last  time  in  America,  that 
old  picture  of  the  "main-travelled  road",  winding 
here  and  there  along  the  easiest  grades,  type  of  human 


CATTLE  DAYS  IN  CANADA  WEST      55 

life  itself,  seeking  the  line  of  least  resistance,  self- 
reliant,  finding  its  own  way,  depending  on  itself;  and 
so  alluring,  inviting  one  on  and  on  to  where  it  vanished 
on  the  crest  of  some  distant  ridge;  leading  beyond, 
one  might  not  doubt,  to  sown  fields  and  a  home,  and 
content  and  happiness.  Who  does  not  love  the  main- 
travelled  road  of  the  prairies,  which  just  links  him 
loosely  to  the  truth  that  he  is  white  and  civilized,  yet 
does  not  free  him  from  the  thought  that  he  is  savage, 
that  he  is  at  the  beginning  of  all  things,  that  all  the 
earth  and  all  of  life  yet  lie  before  him! 

Sometimes  our  road  lay  in  the  Valley  of  the  Qu'- 
Appelle,  sometimes  at  the  rim  of  the  prairie  levels 
above  it.  Often  it  seemed  that  the  white  man  had 
not  yet  come  to  any  of  this  country.  Now  and  again 
we  saw  groups  of  the  Indian  tepees,  no  longer  made 
of  hides,  but  still  framed  on  the  old  tribal  lines. 
These  aboriginal  abodes  were  grouped  as  of  yore,  at 
the  mouths  of  the  coulees  leading  down  from  the  flats 
into  the  wide  valley.  In  the  old  days  these  camps 
were  established  at  places  where  the  buffalo  were 
forced  to  come  down  to  drink.  One  might  almost 
expect  the  red  men  even  now  to  send  out  their  scouts 
to  the  tops  of  the  bluffs,  to  spy  out  whether  there 
might  not  be  a  herd  of  buffalo  coming  down.  It 


56  THE  SOWING 

might  have  been  the  old  tribal  life  itself  we  saw  some- 
times from  the  high  edges  of  the  valley — groups  of  the 
conical  tepees,  smoke  atop,  seen  through  a  distance 
mellowed  by  sudden  Scotch  mists  or  swift  down- 
pouring  slants  of  rain. 

But  as  we  rode  along  the  rim  of  the  valley,  passing 
to  the  westward,  now  and  again  we  saw  smoke,  now 
and  again  saw  some  dot  or  speck  upon  the  face  of  the 
wide-sweeping  plains.  Again  they  clustered  strongly, 
these  habitations  of  civilized  men,  farmers,  not  cattle 
drovers  nor  hunters  nor  adventurers.  That  black 
strip  across  the  landscape — it  was  not  the  shadow  of 
a  passing  cloud,  but  the  record  of  a  plough.  These 
yellow  gray  bands  were  the  fields  of  stubble  already 
reaped.  These  other  bands  of  green,  of  pale  yellow, 
of  deep  bright  yellow — they  were  the  fields  of  wheat, 
among  which  the  binders  were  yet  to  do  their  work. 
The  centuries-old  soil  was  findng  its  first  upturned 
exposure  to  the  sun.  Surely  the  plough  had  come. 
There  is  no  more  thrilling  experience  than  this,  of 
seeing  the  ancient  wilderness  just  passing  into  the 
first  loose  fingers  of  civilized  man's  occupation. 

Here  was  the  wheat,  crowding  up  to  the  trail,  high 
as  the  wagon  seat  as  we  drove  through.  At  the  edge 
of  a  grumbling  cow  man's  unowned  but  long  occupied 


CATTLE  DAYS  IN  CANADA  WEST  57 

range,  we  reached  down  and  plucked  off  ripe  wheat 
in  handsful,  crumpling  out  into  the  palm  the  full  ears 
of  triple-rowed  kernels,  magnificent  grain,  the  food 
which  the  world  must  have — that  grain  upon  which 
the  whole  civilization  of  the  earth  seems  strangely  to 
depend.  When  the  wheat  has  come,  civilization  has 
taken  hold  of  the  land,  never  again  to  loose  its  grasp. 
One  who  loves  the  open  air  and  the  wild  world  cannot 
suppress  a  sigh  of  regret  at  first  thought  of  the  passing 
plains,  at  the  thought  of  the  dead  romance  of  the 
rancher;  but  then  there  must  come  the  soberer 
thought  that  the  wildernesses  of  this  world,  as  well 
as  the  scant  fields  of  the  older  world,  belong  to  the 
world  and  the  world's  peoples. 

In  the  heart  of  Saskatchewan  one  now  is  never 
out  of  touch  with  the  settlements.  The  traveller 
au  large,  on  wheels  of  his  own,  camps  now  and  then 
at  the  half  savage  dwelling  of  some  irascible  cow  man, 
oftener  at  the  more  comfortable  abode  of  some  wheat- 
raising  farmer;  and  at  times  he  sees,  miles  distant  on 
the  horizon,  the  gaunt  arms  of  a  great  windmill, 
supplying  a  railway  tank.  Now  and  again  he  catches 
view  of  a  roll  of  smoke  passing,  or  hears  the  rumbling 
signals  of  a  railway  train.  Paralleling,  if  not  follow- 
ing the  old  trails,  here  is  the  railway,  path  of  the  new, 


58  THE  SOWING 

permanent  trail  of  the  man  with  the  plough,  who  has 
wiped  out  all  the  paths  worn  in  the  soil  by  the  wild  or 
tame  herds  of  days  now  gone  by. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

ON    THE    NEW    FRONTIER. 

EXTENDED  personal  inquiry  in  mid-Saskatchewan 
in  the  course  of  a  long  journey  failed  to  discover  one 
farmer  who  was  homesick  or  discontented,  or  who 
declared  that  he  was  going  back  to  Old  England  or 
to  the  States.  Without  exception  they  declared 
that  they  were  not  only  contented,  but  prosperous. 
In  most  cases  their  one  or  two  crops  had  given  them 
their  lands  and  their  first  farmstead  buildings  of 
rude  comfort,  at  least,  fully  paid  for;  and  this  land 
was  their  own.  No  basement  life  for  these  settlers, 
nor  for  their  children,  nor  their  children's  children; 
no  rack  rents,  no  struggle  with  a  worn,  exhausted 
soil.  Here  was  a  different  field  for  humanity.  Is 
there  any  difficulty  in  predicting  the  difference 
between  the  product  of  such  fields  and  those  of  the 
"pent  and  huddled  East"? 

Some  of  this  land  had  been  taken  under  the  home- 
stead laws,  but  much  of  it  had  been  bought  of  earlier 

59 


60  THE  SOWING 

holders.  In  scarcely  a  farm  was  all  the  land  as  yet 
broken  up  and  so  made  ready  for  the  wheat;  but 
always  now  we  saw  the  broad  strips  of  the  dark  soil, 
and  the  wide  patches  of  the  yellow  wheat  upon  the 
landscape. 

It  was  a  fascinating  sight,  this  middle  land  be- 
tween the  old  and  the  new.  Most  fascinating  of  all 
was  the  air  of  hope  and  confidence.  Something  set 
the  blood  tingling  in  the  veins.  No  one  here  spoke 
of  despair  or  discouragement.  These  men  made  no 
repining  at  their  lot  as  frontier  farmers,  their  sole 
concern  being  the  question  of  means  of  getting  out 
their  wheat  to  the  markets. 

In  the  marshes  which  drained  into  the  head  of  the 
lakes  we  saw  everywhere  uncounted  thousands  of 
wild  fowl.  The  Dominion  Government  wisely  has 
established  many  game  reserves,  so  that  to  some 
extent  at  least  the  ancient  breeding  grounds  will  be 
preserved.  Every  care  has  been  taken  to  conserve 
this  delectable  country  as  a  home  desirable  for  red- 
blooded  men  and  women.  Most  of  the  farmers  at 
the  time  of  this  particular  journey  were  too  busy 
with  their  harvesting  to  pay  much  attention  to  sport, 
but  when  the  necessary  work  is  done,  any  man  here- 
about has  ready  access  to  countless  swarms  of  wild 


ON  THE  NEW  FRONTIER  61 

geese,  sand-hill  cranes,  scores  of  species  of  wild 
duck.  The  wheat  lands  run  up  to  the  edges  of  long 
winding  marshes,  and  as  is  the  case  in  all  the  northern 
portions  of  the  United  States,  the  wild  fowl  readily 
adjust  themselves  to  the  early  stages  of  civilization, 
the  wheat  stubble  furnishing  the  best  shooting 
grounds  for  geese  and  cranes.  Such  conditions  make 
strong  appeal  to  sport-loving  farmers  fresh  from  Old 
England. 

In  such  regions  as  this,  one  still  travels  as  one  likes 
across  country,  paying  no  attention  to  roads; 
although  now  and  again  one  comes  upon  roads  rudely 
ploughed  along  the  section  lines,  in  some  cases,  near 
the  railroads,  fairly  well  worked.  The  time  of  the 
"main-travelled  road"  is  passing  rapidly,  even  in 
Canada.  Soon  the  fences  will  come  along  the  high- 
ways, and  all  travel  will  follow  the  lines  bounding 
artificial  rectangles.  Exulting  in  our  liberty,  for  the 
most  part  our  party  continued  to  travel  direct  toward 
a  destination.  We  still  held  to  the  prairies,  and  still 
on  every  side  of  us  was  wheat,  wheat,  wheat. 

It  is  thus,  in  actual  contact  with  the  conditions 
whicih  the  colonist  must  meet,  that  one  arrives 
most  naturally  at  the  ever  vital  question  of 
who  and  what  that  colonist  must  be.  Some  of 


62  THE  SOWING 

our  party  were  Englishmen,  and  of  these  one 
declared  that  Canada  seemed  to  value  an  Englishman 
no  more  than  an  American,  perhaps  not  so  much! 
In  his  belief  this  ought  not  to  be.  At  him  scoffed  yet 
another  of  the  party,  an  Englishman  born  of  good 
family,  but  for  twenty  years  a  western  Canadian 
farmer.  This  latter  man  had  been  transplanted,  had 
taken  root,  had  flourished  in  the  new  environment. 

"Why  should  we  do  more  for  an  Englishman  than 
for  an  American?"  asked  he.  "We  want  farmers 
who  can  farm.  We  need  men  who  can  live  this 
frontier  life.  Why  should  we  favor  England  if 
England  does  not  deserve  it?  We  will  take  you  on 
if  you  can  work,  and  will  pay  you  for  what  you 
actually  can  do.  Why  should  we  pay  you  for  what 
you  cannot  do?  Why  should  we  not  pay  better  the 
man  who  can  do  more  than  yourself?" 

It  is  the  city  man  against  whom  Canada  is  most 
relentless.  "The  Englishman  who  succeeds  in  Can- 
ada is  hardly  ever  a  Londoner;  the  Englishman  who 
fails  completely  is  almost  always  a  Londoner."  This 
is  the  deliberate  opinion  of  the  special  correspondent 
of  The  Times  who  lately  toured  through  Canada ;  and 
the  journal  citing  that  conclusion  (The  Canadian 
Gazette),  adds  comment  of  its  own: 


ON  THE  NEW  FRONTIER  63 

"Of  course,  this  is  only  another  and  more  graphic 
version  of  an  old  story.  Against  the  Englishman  as  an 
Englishman  and  the  Londoner  as  a  Londoner  Cana- 
dians have  no  sort  of  prejudice.  If  any  individual — 
Englishman  or  Londoner — is  disliked,  it  is  because  he 
shows  himself  manifestly  unadaptable  to  Canadian 
conditions.  He  does  not  know  Canadian  ways,  and 
he  is  not  willing  to  learn  them.  Immigrants  from 
other  civilized  lands  may  think  Canadians  foolish  to 
do  things  as  they  do,  but  they  hide  their  opinions  and 
industriously  learn  Canadian  methods.  This  makes 
them  more  quickly  available  as  workers.  English, 
and  especially  English  city  immigrants,  fit  in  more 
slowly  than  their  competitors,  and  they  aggravate 
their  unadaptability  by  unreasonable  expectations  of 
Canadian  conditions  and  ill-natured  criticisms  because 
the  unquestioned  opportunities  for  material  advance- 
ment which  Canada  offers  are  not  often  found  in  con- 
junction with  theatres  and  music  halls  and  the  garish 
accompaniments  of  English  town  life.  It  happily  is 
true  that  most  Englishmen  and  many  Londoners, 
possessing  grit  and  good  sense  as  they  do,  get  along 
excellently  in  Canada  and  find  their  chances  such  as 
they  would  never  have  found  in  this  country.  But 
for  these  others  Canada  has  no  room,  and  the  more 


64  THE  SOWING 

broadcast  that  fact  is  made  known  the  better.  The 
newer  Canadian  immigration  regulations  preclude 
the  entry  into  Canada  of  men  of  this  luckless  type 
through  charitable  agencies;  when  they  do  now  go 
to  Canada  it  is  of  their  own  free  will  and  at  their  own 
expense.  The  best  antidote,  therefore,  is  their  failure 
and  the  wide  publicity  of  Canada's  need  of  none  but 
men  of  grit  and  adaptability." 

That  is  hard  doctrine  for  the  newcome  Englishman 
to  face,  who  still  feels  the  homesick  pull  of  the  old 
country  at  his  heart  strings.  Yet  it  is  doctrine  which 
any  man  must  be  prepared  to  face  in  any  country 
where  everything  is  new.  The  frontier  knows  no 
flag.  It  is  man  for  man,  and  all  against  the  war-front 
of  nature.  It  is  best  for  any  new  settler  to  know  this 
truth  in  advance.  Here  then,  in  these  undenied 
facts,  rest  the  full  question  and  answer  of  colonization. 

Clean  and  sane  colonization  requires  and  demands 
that  there  shall  be  opportunity,  but  insists  that  the 
intending  colonist  shall  be  fit  and  prepared  to  avail 
himself  of  opportunity  when  offered.  This  prepara- 
tion has  in  the  nature  of  things  often  been  impossible 
for  the  newcome  Englishman — of  course  far  more 
often  impossible  for  the  English  city  dweller  than  for 
the  English  farmer.  Neither  can  in  reason  be 


ON  THE  NEW  FRONTIER  65 

expected  to  know  the  requirements  of  the  Canadian 
West.  The  frontier  asks  for  trained  men,  skilled 
men,  strong  and  steady  of  purpose,  ready  to  adapt 
themselves  to  new  surroundings,  able  to  endure  the 
deprivations  and  hardships  which  for  a  time  are 
necessary  on  any  frontier.  Viewed  from  one  angle, 
at  least,  it  certainly  is  this  sort  of  colonist  who  is 
needed  to  change  the  wilderness  into  a  farm.  , 

What  could  the  men  and  women  of  the  huddled 
Old  World  cities  do  for  themselves  if  transplanted  to 
a  land  like  this?  Experience  already  answers  that. 
Farming  itself  is  a  profession,  and  it  must  be  learned. 
Many  fail  at  it.  No  work  is  harder  or  more  constant 
than  that  of  farming,  even  in  the  richest  of  countries. 
There  is  no  royal  road  to  success  in  raising  wheat  or 
any  other  product  of  the  farm.  It  means  work.  It 
costs  courage.  It  requires  brains  and  it  demands 
experience.  Western  Canada's  farms  show  that  the 
game  can  be  won;  but  it  has  only  been  won  at  the 
cost  of  skill,  courage,  experience,  by  means  of  stark 
physical  hardihood,  well-applied  knowledge,  steady 
purpose.  What  would  be  the  fate  of  the  weakened 
city  dweller,  fresh  from  the  slums  and  without  pre- 
paration, set  down  in  such  surroundings,  necessarily 
unskilled  in  this  manner  of  labor,  ignorant  of  the  use 


66  THE  SOWING 

of  machinery,  ignorant  of  everything,  and  not  yet 
even  physically  strong?  How  can  one  of  the  very 
poor  make  a  living,  even  if  he  be  given  a  "start",  in 
a  new  country  such  as  this?  Such  a  man  would  miss, 
first  of  all,  the  companionable  dirt  and  grind  and 
hurry  of  the  city  which  bore  him.  Worn  down  by 
the  meagreness,  the  solitariness  and  the  continual 
stress,  awed  by  the  continual  menace  of  an  affronted 
nature,  would  he  despair,  would  he  grow  sick  at  heart, 
and  so  curse  God  and  die?  That  question  is  the 
gravest  asked  of  any  land  to-day.  In  time  it  must 
be  answered — answered  by  Canada  and  England; 
assuredly  not  by  England  alone. 

Hasty  experiment  of  English  colonization  in 
Canada  has  been  undertaken  in  many  instances. 
Many  years  ago,  for  one  instance,  there  was  located 
in  southern  Saskatchewan  a  colony  of  typical  Lon- 
doners, Whitechapel  "bird  catchers",  as  they  were 
called,  waifs  of  the  London  tenement  district.  These 
people  knew  nothing  whatever  of  farming.  They 
did  not  know  how  or  where  to  begin.  The  newness 
of  all  their  surroundings  seemed  to  work  upon  them 
some  appalling  apathy.  They  huddled  up  about  the 
hearths  of  their  wastrel  homesteads,  and  when  winter 
came,  they  starved,  froze  and  died.  None  knew  the 


ON  THE  NEW  FRONTIER  67 

use  of  weapons.  Each  needed  to  be  taught  how  to 
handle  a  horse.  All  was  hard,  helpless,  difficult, 
useless.  Some  of  them  won  through,  and,  Canadians 
now,  are  prosperous  and  contented  citizens. 

But  Canada  owes  no  duty  to  England  which  forces 
her  to  take  such  citizens.  Not  even  philanthropy 
owes  a  duty  to  humanity  which  implies  the  handling 
of  the  very  poor  in  a  way  like  that,  so  far  removed 
from  mere  intelligence.  Hard  indeed  is  the  answer 
to  this  problem  of  the  poor,  who  need  opportunity, 
but  cannot  use  it ! 

Ah,  then  our  story  ends  here?  The  failure  of  such 
altruism  is  foregone  ?  Not  in  the  least.  The  story  of 
true  colonization  but  begins  where  this  conclusion  is 
written  by  despair. 

It  is  true  Canada  owes  nothing  to  England  which 
obliges  her  to  prefer  such  citizens  to  others  offered 
ready  at  hand,  bred  and  trained  in  the  problem  of 
the  frontier.  But  surely  England  owes  it  as  one  of 
the  correctives  of  her  own  civilization  to  put  the 
younger  land  of  Canada  in  an  industrial  and  a 
financial  position  to  take  at  least  the  potentially 
efficient  poor  and  plant  them  and  nurture  them 
intelligently,  giving  their  wasted  tendrils  holding- 
place  on  some  manner  of  support,  stage  by  stage 


68  THE  SOWING 

— gradually  advancing  in  fitness,  until  at  last  the 
sun  and  the  sky  and  the  soil  shall  make  these 
tendrils  full  and  strong;  until  the  human  plant, 
transplanted,  shall  take  root,  and  so  offer  proof  of  the 
virtue  of  good  environment, — a  human  being  better 
and  more  useful  to  the  world.  The  human  plant — 
that  is  the  question!  Not  politics,  not  sentiment, 
not  any  foolish  talk  of  empire,  or  worse  than  foolish 
talk  of  preferring  an  Englishman  to  any  other  man, 
is  what  England  and  Canada  alike  need  to-day  to 
consider. 

It  is  no  time  for  England  vaguely  to  talk  of  empire 
as  empire.  That  is  not  enough.  Science,  not  politics, 
should  govern  now.  Her  greatest  concern  should  be 
over  the  average  of  her  humanity.  No  country  is 
stronger  than  the  average  of  its  population.  Let 
England  take  care  of  her  men  and  women,  and  her 
empire  will  take  care  of  itself.  Let  her  fail  to  do  so, 
and  there  can  be  no  ruler,  and  no  system  of  govern- 
ment, which  can  assure  empire  to  her  flag.  The 
growth  of  the  House  of  Commons  of  England  has 
been  steady,  generation  after  generation.  As  the 
ages  pass,  there  waxes  ever  the  demand  of  the  average 
man.  In  time  comes  the  demand  that  this  average 
must  be  better  and  stronger;  that  there  shall  not 


ON  THE  NEW  FRONTIER  69 

exist  extremes  too  wide  between  master  and  slave, 
between  effetely  affluent  and  abjectly  poor.  This  is 
true  for  England.  It  is  true  for  all  the  world. 

"In  the  shadow  of  cathedrals,  crowned  by  cen- 
turies of  story,  beneath  the  very  arches  of  castellated 
ruin  by  the  Rhine,  see  the  unlettered  peasant  plowing 
with  the  family  cow.  To  such  a  man,  what  avail 
the  centuries?  How  much  of  life  from  that  old 
cathedral  gilds  his  toil?  Upon  his  sorrow-dimmed 
vision  what  romantic  spectacle  arises,  as  round  the 
castle  walls  in  penury  he  stumbles  during  the  slow- 
grinding  years  of  human  toil?  Let  us  rejoice  that 
fifty  years  have  placed  here,  under  these  skies,  more 
happy,  simple  homes  that  can  be  found  in  any  equal 
area  in  all  the  ancient  world!"  Thus  another 
phrases  it. 

Old  lands  have  poor  and  rich.  But  what  is  their 
average?  Why  feel  pride  in  England's  wealth? 
What  is  her  average  well-being?  My  arm  is  no 
stronger  for  the  exercise  you  give  to  yours;  my 
pocket  is  no  richer  for  the  fact  that  yours  is  full; 
my  happiness  does  not  consist  in  seeing  your  castle 
of  content.  But  give  me  work,  give  me  money  I  have 
earned,  give  me  castle  of  my  own  that  I  have  earned 
and  may  hold — ah,  then  you  make  me  Saxon,  English- 


70  THE  SOWING 

man,  American,  Ca/iadian.     Best  of  all,  you  make 
me  man! 

This  is  no  specific  criticism,  and  we  deal  here  with 
no  specific  problem.  Such  matters  are  not  for 
England  alone.  Young  as  is  the  United  States,  the 
progressive  President  of  that  Republic  in  the  Fall  of 
1908  appointed  a  commission  to  look  into  the  very 
questions  now  soberly  agitating  Canada  and  England. 
He  asked  this  commission  to  learn  what  best  can  be 
done  to  get  men  out  from  the  cities  and  on  the  farms ; 
knowing  that  that  is  the  next  great  step  in  the 
prosperity  and  wealth-making  of  that  republic,  as 
indeed  it  is  of  the  entire  world  to-day.  Give  me 
castle  of  my  own!  That  is  the  Saxon  demand. 
Make  me  a  man !  That  is  to  say,  give  me  the  chance 
to  make  of  myself  a  man! 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

OVER   SEAS. 

THE  successes  of  England  are  those  of  heredity; 
but,  unless  all  science  be  wrong,  success  of  heredity 
cannot  always  endure  when  environment  lacks.  The 
greatest  of  gardeners  knows  when  to  transplant. 
The  success  of  England  and  of  her  great  men  has  long 
been  a  success  up-hill,  done  in  spite  of  all.  So  great 
is  England's  mighty  past,  so  imperative  is  her  demand 
upon  her  sons  that  they  shall  rival  the  deeds  of  that 
past,  that  always  great  men  have  grown  there,  in 
stature  springing  to  the  very  glass  of  their  hothouse 
covering.  She  has  sent  many  great  men  abroad ;  for 
centuries  England  has  been  great  in  her  colonies, 
great  in  men  who  have  carried  with  them  the  seed  of 
deeds,  that  yet  greater  deeds  might  arise. 

England's  island  horizon  inexorably  marks  delimi- 
tation for  her  ambition.  Great  men  grow  there ;  but 
that  is  beside  the  question.  The  real  question  is: 
What  would  proper  transplanting  do  for  the  middle- 

71 


72  THE  SOWING 

class  or  lower-class  Englishman?  The  argument  is 
not  upon  England's  government,  not  upon  her 
royalty,  her  House  of  Lords,  her  nobility,  even  her 
House  of  Commons.  It  has  to  do  with  the  yet  larger 
question  of  average  English  men  and  women.  The 
ultimate  pride  of  any  nation  must  be  in  the  strength 
and  welfare  of  its  average  self-reliant  man.  The 
glory  of  a  bejeweled  crown  is  nothing  to  him  who 
starves.  The  splendour  of  My  Lord's  achievement 
in  the  forum  is  naught  to  her  who  brings  imbeciles 
into  the  world. 

These  truths  exist  as  much  for  any  land  as  for 
England,  and  the  swift  fashion  of  these  days  brings 
them  home  now  with  startling  vividness  to  every 
nation  of  the  world.  Human  unrest  never  was 
greater.  The  call  of  the  new  lands,  where  the  stress 
of  extremes  is  not  yet  so  great — that  is  the  sole  voice 
of  hope  for  the  over-crowded  world  to-day.  In  the 
wilderness  thus  far  has  lain  our  salvation. 

Had  there  been  no  American  colonies,  no  trans- 
planting of  Englishmen  and  others  to  rich  new  lands 
offered  free  by  nature,  what  would  be  the  story  of 
Europe  to-day?  In  the  stern  fashion  of  nature, 
famine  and  pestilence  and  ruin  would  have  cleared 
yonder  hothouse  long  ago.  Europe  would  now  have 


OVER  SEAS  73 

the  ways  of  China.  England,  plus  Canada, — the  Old 
World  plus  the  United  States  and  other  new  countries 
have  offered  their  wider  total  for  the  world's  develop- 
ment, and  proved  that  all  the  world's  surface  was 
meant  for  occupancy.  They  have  proved  also  that 
the  world's  good  is  the  good  of  the  average  man ;  that 
the  world's  governments  adjust  themselves  to  these 
facts  as  they  arise  from  varying  environments  of  man. 
Monarchies  for  the  mixed  peoples  of  the  hothouse, 
self-rule  for  the  self-selected  strong  of  the  new 
countries, — no  king  seems  to  have  been  quite  able  to 
evade  this  rule.  It  works  itself  out  slowly.  The 
greatest  king  of  the  earth  to-day  takes  in  it  the 
greatest  pride.  No  colonizing  nation  need  fear  it, 
but  rather  should  find  comfort  in  it. 

What  the  Canadian  Government  may  be  a  hun- 
dred years  hence  is  of  no  consequence.  Whatever  it 
shall  be,  it  will  be  the  proper  one,  because  Canada  will 
have  been  the  growing  ground  of  a  strong  and  virile 
breed  of  men,  fit  to  be  governed  and  fit  to  govern. 
It  is  enough  to  let  the  years  alone.  Whether  or  not  a 
new  nation  shall  have  arisen ,  a  new  people  will  inexor- 
ably and  inevitably  have  arisen.  The  world  will 
have  advanced  a  stage  in  its  development,  in  spite  of 
little  theories,  in  spite  of  selfish  and  narrow  plans. 


74  THE  SOWING 

That  is  not  to  say  that  we  are  to  sit  idly  by  and 
watch  these  matters  happen.  Each  people  may  be 
and  must  be  to  some  extent  master  of  its  own  destiny. 
Each  nation  therefore  needs  practical  idealists,  men 
who  have  the  constructive  imagination.  All  the 
better  if  these  men  of  grasp  and  vision  be  found  in 
governmental  circles.  It  is  not  sufficient  to  reason 
abstractly,  composedly,  complacently,  thus  or  so 
about  colonization.  The  thing  is  to  do  colonization — 
to  forecast  the  people's  future,  and  to  make  plans 
for  it. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

HIT    OR    MISS    PHILANTHROPY. 

THE  substantial  truth  and  justice  of  most  of  the 
statements  in  the  foregoing  pages  generally  will  be 
admitted  by  those  who  read  and  think.  It  is  agreed 
alike  in  England  and  in  Canada  that  something 
immediately  must  be  done  in  the  way  of  relieving 
the  population  pressure  in  England  and  filling  the 
population  want  in  Canada.  Yet  of  all  great  ques- 
tions this  seems  farthest  from  answer.  Of  all  answers 
offered  to  any  question,  few  ever  were  more  confused, 
more  divergent,  and  more  hotly  conflicting  than  those 
advanced  on  both  sides  of  the  sea  in  this  debated 
matter  of  colonization.  For  our  part,  it  will  serve 
at  the  time  to  assemble  some  of  these  theories  and 
to  mention  some  of  the  experiments  which  have  been 
suggested  or  attempted.  We  shall  need  to  quote  at 
some  length,  and  for  the  light  or  careless  reader,  some 
of  these  long  statements  may  seem  a  bit  dreary. 
They  are,  however,  part  of  the  assembling  of  our 

75 


76  THE  SOWING 

premises,  and  since  no  argument  is  stronger  than  its 
premises,  and  since  we  have  an  argument  later  to  be 
built,  one  must  ask  patience,  and  bespeak  considera- 
tion for  writers  quite  as  able  and  as  eager  as  one's  self. 

Well  toward  the  front  rank  of  current  comment 
is  that  of  the  vaguely  loyal  citizen  who  finds  himself 
possessed  of  a  residence  in  Canada  and  a  reverence 
for  England.  We  may  perhaps,  as  well  as  in  any 
other  way,  phrase  such  belief  in  the  following  words, 
which  have  appeared,  one  believes,  both  in  the 
Colonial  and  the  British  press: 

"The  ways  of  tugging  the  rope  from  American 
realism  towards  British  idealism  are  of  like  character. 
We  have  got  to  make  Canada  feel  she  needs  poets  as 
well  as  foreign  immigrants,  and  prophets  as  well  as 
American  capitalists.  We  have  got  to  persuade  her 
people  that  great  as  may  be  the  conquests  in  front 
of  them,  those  triumphs  can  never  transcend  in  glory 
the  splendour  of  their  inheritance  as  sons  of  Magna 
Charta,  the  heirs  of  Shakespeare,  and  the  kin  of 
Latimer,  Hampden,  Cromwell,  and  Nelson.  Never 
will  her  banners  bear  prouder  names  than  Trafalgar 
and  Waterloo.  Never  will  her  bookshelf  hold  sub- 
limer  books  than  the  English  Bible.  There  are  those 
in  Canada  who  keep  this  faith  with  a  passionate 


HIT  OR  MISS  PHILANTHROPY  77 

enthusiasm.  There  are  those  who  love  England. 
Shall  we  strengthen  their  hands  with  all  our  might 
and  with  all  our  main,  or  stand  by  and  see  them  borne 
down  by  the  foreign  immigrant  and  the  spirit  of 
America?" 

From  one  point  of  view,  the  foregoing  is  to  say 
much,  but  from  the  standpoint  of  a  hard-headed  man 
it  is  to  say  very  little.  It  is  beautiful,  but  so  beauti- 
fully vague  that  the  average  business  man  will  with  a 
"passionate  enthusiasm"  designate  it  to  be  no  more 
than  mere  vaporing.  It  does  nothing.  It  formulates 
no  clean  cut  policy  of  action.  Canada  has  not  time 
to  deal  in  vague  hopes.  There  must  be  definite  deeds. 

Religion  and  morality  come  next,  with  their  sug- 
gestions in  colonization,  each  as  wide  of  the  mark  as 
mere  racial  sentiment.  These  forget  that  on  this 
earth  the  stomach  comes  before  the  soul ;  that  before 
you  can  uplift  a  man  you  must  feed  him.  They 
content  themselves  with  such  generalizations  as  the 
following — with  the  excellence  of  whose  tone  no  issue 
can  be  taken: 

"We  are  told  that  Government  is  about  to  apply 
much  more  strict  rule  to  the  out-of-works  in  Toronto 
than  it  has  hitherto  done,  and  that  should  it  be  found 
that  any  of  them  had  come  to  the  country  without 


78  THE  SOWING 

the  prescribed  amount  of  money  in  their  pockets, 

they  will  be  sent  back  whence  they  came. 

"Is  this  Christianity?  It  seems  worse  than 
Buddhism  or  Confucianism.  Is  this  likely  to  make 
Christians  and  loyalists,  or  agnostics  and  anarchists? 
It  may  be  that  in  Toronto,  as  in  Montreal,  men  of  the 
most  docile  nature,  men  who  are  a  real  acquisition 
to  the  country,  have  been  fleeced  till  they  are  penni- 
less by  sharks  who  have  the  advantage  of  speaking 
their  own  language,  and  this  for  lack  of  the  protection 
which  the  new  country  should  have  thrown  around 
them." 

Following  close  in  the  wake  of  such  beneficent 
indefiniteness  as  the  foregoing  come  the  well-meant 
endeavors  of  the  charitable  associations  of  England, 
who  have  spent  many  thousands  of  pounds  in  the 
work  of  sending  thousands  of  emigrants  of  the  poorer 
classes  to  Canada.  Here  there  is  a  great,  noble  and 
well-meant  work,  and  something  which  has  as  well  the 
virtue  of  definite  activity ;  so  that  it  is  sad  to  say  that 
this  well-meant  activity  has  not  been  wholly  appreci- 
ated in  Canada. 

Such  labors  have  been  extensive.  In  1907,  socie- 
ties sent  assisted  emigrants  to  Canada  in  the  following 
proportion:  East-End  Emigration  Fund,  6,096;  Self- 


HIT  OR  MISS  PHILANTHROPY  79 

Help  Emigration  Society,  506;  Salvation  Army,  406; 
Church  Army,  1,519;  Church  Emigration  Society, 
663;  Central  Unemployed  Body,  2,842;  Central 
Emigration  Board,  228.  But  Mr.  Walker,  the  Com- 
missioner of  Immigration,  declared  that  the  work  of 
these  societies  gave  him  the  gravest  anxiety,  because 
they  sent  to  him  masses  of  undesirable  citizens. 

Mr.  Hamilton,  honorary  treasurer  of  the  Church 
Army,  London,  England,  makes  a  very  definite  and 
emphatic  protest  to  Mr.  Walker's  strictures: 

"As  Chairman  of  the  Emigration  Committee  of 
the  Church  Army,  I  protest  most  emphatically 
against  this  sweeping  condemnation  of  the  emigrants 
sent  out  to  Canada  by  this  organization.  The  great 
majority  of  the  men  whom  we  emigrated  in  the  year 
1907  were  persons  of  the  working  class  who  had 
always  been  honest  and  industrious,  but  who  from  no 
fault  of  their  own  had  become  destitute  through  being 
out  of  work  a  long  time. 

"With  regard  to  the  emigrants  we  sent  in  the  year 
1906,  in  an  interview  with  our  agent,  Sir  Wilfrid 
Laurier  said : 

"  'Your  immigrants  have  done  well  for  themselves 
and  well  for  their  employers.  There  is  plenty  of  work 
for  all  you  can  send  out,  as  the  farmers  are  wanting 


80  THE  SOWING 

men  and  cannot  get  them.     I  wish  you  all  success  in 

your  work.' ' 

This  leaves  the  floor  clear  for  the  Commissioner  of 
Immigration  to  conclude,  although  his  somewhat  hot 
retort  seems  not  essentially  to  clear  the  sky: 

"  I  have  nothing  to  withdraw  of  what  I  have  said 
regarding  the  character  of  the  general  body  of  the 
immigrants  sent  to  Canada  by  the  Church  Army.  As 
a  body  they  are  entirely  unsuited  to  the  needs  of  our 
country,  and  in  proof  of  this,  one  has  only  to  look  at 
the  number  of  immigrants  stranded  in  Toronto  and 
Winnipeg,  and  in  many  of  the  smaller  towns  of 
Ontario. 

"  I  cordially  concede  to  the  Church  Army  the  best 
intentions,  and  believe  it  is  actuated  by  good  and 
commendable  motives,  but  unfortunately  it  is  working 
for  the  most  part  with  material  which  from  training 
and  environment  is  not  the  kind  of  material  needed  in 
Canada  to-day. 

"The  residents  of  the  slums  of  the  great  city  of 
London  or  other  great  centres  of  population  are  not 
the  kind  of  people  likely  to  accommodate  themselves 
to  our  conditions,  or  to  become  readily  absorbed  in 
our  national  life. 


The  Royal  Alexandra  Station  at  Winnipeg 


HIT  OR  MISS  PHILANTHROPY  81 

"Canada  is  not  calling  for  skilled  tradesmen,  yet 
the  Church  Army  constantly  sends  them. 

"  Canada  is  not  calling  for  men  who  make  a  failure 
of  life  in  the  Old  Country,  yet  the  Church  Army  con- 
stantly sends  them. 

"But  Canada  is  calling  for  men  of  brawn  and 
muscle,  who  have  tilled  and  who  are  desirous  of 
tilling  the  soil.  The  Church  Army  sends  this  class 
only  in  infinitely  small  proportions." 

Commissioner  Elijah  Cadman,  of  the  Salvation 
Army,  recently  remarked  before  a  large  audience  in 
an  American  city: 

"They  tell  us  we  are  depopulating  England  of  the 
cream  of  its  working  class.  We  answer  that  unless 
this  is  done  the  cream  will  soon  turn  sour. 

"  Our  organized  effort  to  supply  the  manless  land 
with  the  landless  man  is  a  success  from  every  point  of 
view.  However,  we  are  being  criticized  in  England 
and  in  Canada  for  reasons  diametrically  opposite.  In 
Canada  they  say  we  are  flooding  the  country  with 
hordes  from  English  slums.  We  reply  that  we  are 
not  bringing  over  any  of  the  'submerged'.  We  are 
refusing  hundreds  of  undesirable  applicants  every 
day.  In  England  some  declare  we  are  draining  the 
country  of  its  best.  But  under  present  conditions 


82  THE  SOWING 

that  '  best '  will  soon  be  spoiled  if  allowed  to  continue 

to  live  in  the  congested  cities." 

Here,  then,  we  have  it.  Canada,  the  colony,  and 
England,  the  mother  country,  both  agree  that  some- 
thing ought  to  be  done  in  colonization;  both  agree 
that  something  ought  to  be  done  for  the  helpless 
poor;  but  they  do  not  agree  upon  what  ought  to  be 
done.  Meantime,  Canada  waits,  her  brow  troubled, 
her  calm  of  two  hundred  years  broken,  her  mind 
suddenly  oppressed  with  the  truth  that  a  place  in  the 
world's  history  means  an  assumption  of  the  world's 
problems.  What  shall  Canada  do?  Already  she  has 
seen  the  evil  of  ill-advised  unloading  on  her  shores  of 
the  helpless  and  unfit  poor.  When  she  resents  this, 
she  is  accused  of  "  clubbing  the  head  of  the  swimmer  ". 
What  may  Canada  do?  What  is  right  that  she 
should  do  ?  Certainly ,  since  the  penning  of  the  first 
words  of  our  little  study,  the  Dominion  Government 
has  taken  action  so  radical  as  to  leave  much  of  the 
foregoing  in  the  class  of  the  obsolete.  The  activities 
of  the  charitable  and  emigration  associations  have 
been  brought  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Canadian 
Emigration  Department.  Undoubtedly  previous  to 
that  date  many  emigrants  were  sent  out  to  Canada 
by  charitable  societies  who  were  unfit  to  grapple  with 


HIT  OR  MISS  PHILANTHROPY  83 

conditions  in  Canada,  and  numerous  cases  of  hardship 
resulted.  But  it  was  to  combat  this  recognized  evil 
that  authority  was  given  to  the  Emigration  Depart- 
ment to  allow  no  charitable-society-aided  emigrant 
to  leave  England  without  first  obtaining  the  permis- 
sion of  the  Department.  The  good  effect  of  the  new 
regulations  can  be  judged  from  the  fact  that  one  of 
the  leading  London  charitable  societies,  which  sent 
out  in  1906-7,  6,096  emigrants  to  Canada,  of  whom 
twenty-five  per  cent,  went  to  friends,  sent  this  year 
only  833,  of  whom  no  less  than  seventy-five  per  cent, 
went  to  friends.  The  Canadian  authorities  are 
determined  to  prevent  the  emigration  of  the  unsuit- 
able, and  their  policy  unquestionably  is  a  wise  one. 
Similar  jurisdiction  is  exercised  over  the  numerous 
emigration  agents  throughout  the  United  Kingdom, 
and  any  agents  found  wilfully  misrepresenting  con- 
ditions in  Canada  are  heavily  fined  and  their  licenses 
cancelled. 

So  much  for  Canada's  ability  to  take  care  of  her- 
self. But  does  it  leave  England  able  to  take  care  of 
herself?  Does  it  solve  the  problem  of  the  poor  in 
England,  or  only  make  it  worse  ?  Has  either  England 
or  Canada,  while  taking  care  of  herself,  done  anything 
toward  taking  care  of  the  man  without  a  chance,  the 


84  THE  SOWING 

man  without  hope  and  without  opportunity?  Our 
little  book — not  a  plea  for  Socialism,  mind  well — is 
about  that;  and  our  conclusions  include  him  in  the 
duty  and  the  proper  plans,  both  of  England  and 
Canada. 

In  such  decided  conflict  of  authority  it  is  necessary 
that  we  as  students  shall  seize  ourselves  at  least  of 
certain  general  truths.  Thus  we  may  say  that  in 
argument  it  is  not  logical  to  reason  from  particular 
to  general,  or  to  reason  from  general  to  particular. 
The  premises  must  be  of  the  same  denomination,  or 
we  shall  get  no  valid  conclusion.  It  is  fair  preliminary 
logic,  therefore,  to  ask  England  if  she  knows  and 
realizes  the  actual  denomination  of  the  Canadian 
premise  ? 

On  one  ground,  at  least,  England  and  Canada 
ought  to  meet,  and  that  is  the  broad  one  which  for 
the  time  leaves  politics  aside.  Both  ought  to  consider 
the  human  side  of  the  question.  Both  ought  to 
ponder  the  greatest  good  to  the  greatest  number. 
Both  ought  to  listen  to  the  words  of  a  man  high  in  the 
Dominion  Government,  a  Canadian  born  and  bred  on 
the  western  prairies,  who  takes  a  lofty  but  safe  ground* 
which  will  serve  us  perfectly  as  a  beginning  point  for 
our  later  argument : 


HIT  OR  MISS  PHILANTHROPY  85 

"  Back  of  all  the  plans,  back  of  all  the  differences  of 

belief  as  to  methods  and  means — and  of  course  there 

will  be  differences, — must  be  the  motive  to  do  good  for 

the  world!" 

Those  are  words  big  enough  temporarily  at  least 
to  shame  mere  selfishness.  They  give  the  student 
courage  to  go  on  with  the  plan  of  gathering  in  later 
pages  the  experiences  and  conclusions  of  men  of 
widely  separated  fields  of  activity.  To  these  opinions, 
coming  from  many  different  angles,  Canada  should 
listen  with  respect,  because  they  voice  the  beliefs  of 
Canadians.  England  also  should  listen  with  respect, 
because  they  give  her  greater  information,  and  so  set 
her  that  much  the  closer  to  fairness  in  her  logic. 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE    VIEWPOINT    OF    A    JURIST. 

CANADA  has  always  with  a  certain  justice  pointed 
to  the  difference  between  her  frontier  record  and  that 
of  the  Republic  to  the  south  of  her  on  the  map.  It  is 
true  that  the  Yankee  "bad  man"  as  a  type  never  has 
existed  in  the  Canadian  West,  and  likewise  true  that 
the  Canadian  frontiers  never  have  even  temporarily 
parallelled  the  scenes  of  violence  which  for  two  genera- 
tions of  western  progress  have  marked  life  in  the 
American  Republic. 

Sometimes  this  distinction  is  drawn  to  the  dis- 
credit of  the  American  form  of  government;  and 
indeed  he  were  not  a  broad-minded  citizen  of  the 
United  States  who  would  fail  to  admit  that  in  the 
latter  country  reverence  for  the  law  does  not  exist 
to  the  extent  generally  found  in  Canada  and  indeed 
in  all  of  England's  colonies.  There  is  color  for  this 
in  the  methods  of  American  buccaneer  business  as 

86 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  JURIST  87 

well  as  in  the  story  of  American  outlawry  on  the 
frontier. 

It  is  only  fair  to  say  that  the  American  character, 
whether  in  business,  in  politics,  or  in  society,  has, 
since  the  occupation  of  the  territory  of  the  United 
States,  been  marked  almost  as  much  by  self -suffici- 
ency as  by  self-reliance;  and  this  self-sufficiency  has 
not  only  in  a  few  but  in  many  instances  served  to 
give  that  country  a  reputation  for  lawlessness  which 
only  can  be  called  deserved.  No  reason  for  this  truth 
ever  has  been  offered  in  satisfactory  form.  It  seems 
unwise  to  ascribe  it  to  the  American  form  of  govern- 
ment itself,  for  while  the  government  largely  has 
changed  in  the  past  century,  the  phenomena  of  the 
country  have  remained  constant.  It  is  very  largely, 
no  doubt,  attributable  to  the  character  of  the  early 
population  of  the  United  States,  to  the  former 
remoteness  of  the  western  country,  to  its  great  natural 
richness,  and  to  the  earlier  lack  of  the  cheap  and 
abundant  modern  transportation.  If  this  lawlessness 
has  handicapped  civilization,  it  has  not  sufficed  to 
prevent  it. 

It  cannot  too  much  be  borne  in  mind  that  times 
have  come  to  be  much  changed.  Canada's  problems 
in  population  fall  in  to-day,  the  time  of  cheap  and 


88  THE  SOWING 

abundant  transportation;  her  methods  of  settling 
her  new  lands  are,  therefore,  entirely  different  from 
those  once  necessary  in  the  United  States.  None  the 
less,  even  in  these  days  when  full-fledged  law  and 
order  go  westward  with  the  rails,  Canada  finds  that 
with  her  new  population  she  is  importing  new  prob- 
lems in  disregard  of  the  law.  Crime  is  increasing  in 
Canada,  especially  in  Canadian  cities.  The  truth  is 
forcing  itself  into  observation  that  with  the  well- 
meaning  and  ambitious  poor  are  mingled  large 
numbers  of  those  who  have  no  wish  or  intent  to 
constitute  themselves  useful  units  of  society.  This 
truth  enters  into  the  law-and-order  problems  of 
England's  cities. 

Philanthropy  east  of  the  Atlantic  sometimes  has 
been  ostrich-like  enough  to  fail  to  see  that  in  trans- 
planting masses  of  London's  poor,  it  also  transplanted 
many  of  London's  problems  west  of  the  sea.  For 
the  last  two  years  the  courts  of  Canada  have  been  full 
of  men  out  of  work,  arrested  for  one  or  the  other 
infraction  of  Canada's  stern  ideas  of  the  law. 

In  these  circumstances  of  increasing  criminal 
dockets,  increasing  poor-lists,  and  increasing  problems 
in  local  charity  and  local  remedial  measures,  it  is 
pleasant  to  see  the  broad-minded  fairness  of  the 


H.   M     Howc-11.  Chief  Justice  of  Manitoba 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  JURIST  89 

Canadian  spirit  in  regard  to  these  unwonted  pheno- 
mena. The  courts  of  Canada,  without  exception, 
have  been  lenient  with  such  unfortunates  as  have 
for  one  reason  or  another  come  before  them  from  the 
masses  of  those  who  find  themselves  bewildered  and 
discouraged  in  scenes  wholly  unfamiliar  to  them. 
Many  a  pathetic  story,  many  a  tragedy  is  hid  in  the 
dusty  records  of  the  law,  and  never  finds  its  way  to 
print.  We  shall  take  space  to  offer  here  comment  of 
but  one  jurist,  Chief  Justice  Howell,  of  Manitoba. 
The  Justice,  in  his  address  to  the  Grand  Jury  at 
Winnipeg,  was  obliged  to  refer  to  some  of  these  ques- 
tions, and  said: 

"You  may  be  led  to  conclude  that  we  would  be 
much  better  without  these  foreigners,  that  they  are  a 
menace  to  our  country.  .  .  .  Well,  they  are 
here,  gentlemen;  shall  we  drive  them  out  of  the 
country,  or  hang  them,  or  teach  them?  They  have 
not  had  a  fair  chance,  it  seems  to  me,  in  the  race  of 
life.  In  the  country  they  came  from  the  sidewalks 
of  the  town  were  not  made  for  them,  the  roads  were 
good  enough  for  them,  amongst  the  horses  and  swine. 
If  the  landlord  came  along  they  got  down  on  their 
knees  and  bowed  their  faces  to  the  ground.  They 
could  not  go  from  their  native  village  to  another 


90  THE  SOWING 

without  a  passport  without  being  arrested.  They 
came  to  this  country,  and  here  the  sidewalks  are  for 
them.  They  can  go  as  they  please,  and  liberty 
becomes  license.  By  all  means  punish  them  when 
they  do  wrong,  but  punish  them  justly  and  kindly." 

Let  us  gather  the  import  of  this  last  remark.  Let 
us  carry  the  flavor  of  it  forward  with  us  in  our  later 
study  of  these  matters.  Let  us,  on  either  side  of  the 
sea,  approach  this  pathetic  figure  of  the  poor  man, 
the  man  cast  away  out  of  reach  of  good  environment, 
only  with  justice  and  with  kindness.  In  that  way  we 
are  far  more  apt  to  arrive  at  the  truth. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

THE    VIEWPOINT    OF    A    GOVERNMENT    OFFICIAL. 

THERE  is  no  more  picturesque,  albeit  no  more 
pathetic  spectacle  in  the  world  than  that  afforded 
by  the  Canadian  Pacific  Railway  Station  at  Winnipeg, 
where  most  of  the  European  immigrants  make  the 
first  stop  in  their  long  journey  to  their  chosen  land. 
Marylebone  Station  in  England  may  offer  as  much 
of  pathos,  for  home  is  home,  no  matter  how  humble 
and  hopeless,  and  it  is  hard  even  for  the  poor  to  leave 
their  native  country — perhaps  hardest  of  all  for  the 
poor  to  do  so.  But  England's  assembly  ground 
represents  but  one  nation,  whereas  Winnipeg  shows 
the  outpourings  of  many. 

In  this  gathering  ground  there  are  to  be  seen 
Swedes,  Norwegians,  Germans,  fresh  from  the  old 
country,  or  perhaps  somewhat  seasoned  by  residence 
in  the  States.  Fewer  come  from  South  Europe  to 
Canada  than  to  the  United  States,  but  numbers  of 
Hungarians,  Galicians,  and  others,  are  to  be  seen, 

91 


92  THE  SOWING 

their  striking  and  bright-colored  costumes  of  silks 
and  skins,  their  strange  embroidered  boots  and  bright 
head  coverings  contrasting  with  the  quieter  garb 
of  the  sober-faced  Mennonites,  the  sheepskin- clad 
Russians,  the  high-cheeked  Polanders,  or  the  squat 
Laps  and  Finns.  At  the  long  counter  of  the  immi- 
gration rooms — where  the  commodity  handled  is 
that  of  human  fortunes — one  may  see  blue-eyed  Scots 
puzzling  over  strange  maps  of  Manitoba  or  Saskatche- 
wan, or  stolid  folk  in  cap  and  neck  scarf,  the  uniform 
of  London's  poor.  A  babel  of  tongues  arises,  and 
although  the  government  interpreters  are  polyglot, 
sometimes  they  find  a  language  strange  even  to  them. 
Here  wanders  a  helpless  soul,  with  no  record  of  any 
recent  meal  visible  in  his  gaunt  form  or  features,  no 
discoverable  means  upon  his  person,  and  no  under- 
standable human  speech  by  which  he  may  set  himself 
right  with  the  world.  The  author  has  found  here 
men  who  had  lost  the  cards  which  told  the  addresses 
of  friends  they  wished  to  meet,  and  who  were  all  at 
sea  as  to  what  they  ought  to  do.  It  is  not  infrequent 
for  men  to  turn  up  here  who  started  for  Minnesota 
or  the  Dakotas  in  the  States. 

Among  all  these  are  scores  of  newcomers  unmis- 
takably from  the  cities  of  England.     In  the  rooms 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  GOVERNMENT  OFFICIAL  93 
provided  as  temporary  quarters  by  the  Immigration 
Office  one  may  see  thin -faced,  stony-eyed  women,  of  a 
morning,  wiping  a  scant  circle  of  semi -cleanliness  on 
the  faces  of  weary  and  dirty  children  that  scream 
aloud  at  the  insult  to  their  custom.  Teapots  and 
stewpans  cumber  the  unaccustomed  stove,  and  meals 
go  forward  at  all  hours  in  one  corner  or  another.  On 
floors  still  higher  up  are  other  rooms,  lofts  with  little 
platforms  where  newcomers  spread  down  their  scanty 
bedding  on  the  floor.  Meagre  enough  is  the  usual 
bundle  which  represents  the  total  worldly  goods  of  a 
family  here.  Without  this  pitiful  object  lesson,  their 
past  could  be  read  in  the  apathetic  face,  the  shuffling 
walk,  the  hopeless  look  which  distinguishes  so  many 
of  these  helpless  poor,  thrust,  at  the  argument  of  the 
foot,  out  of  their  home  country  to  mend  their  fortunes 
as  best  they  may. 

Each  nationality  will  show  young  men  and  women 
rejoicing  in  the  best  of  all  wealth,  strong  and  hardy 
bodies, — young  men  who  soon  will  be  land  owners, 
young  women  who  will  soon  have  discarded  this  gaudy 
shawl  for  the  flowered  bonnet  of  their  new  neighbors. 
Two  or  three  years  will  work  a  wondrous  change  with 
these  younger  persons.  Perhaps  less  hope  exists  for 
this  wrinkled  woman  who  sits  against  the  fence,  in 


94  THE  SOWING 

the  brilliant  sunlight,  nursing  her  child,  her  head 
beturbaned,  her  garb  a  mass  of  rags,  her  face  long  a 
stranger  to  water,  her  coarse  feet  encased  in  heavy 
high  boots  thrust  out  at  full  length  before  her  on  the 
ground,  modesty  and  womanliness  strangers  to  her 
soul  throughout  her  life,  and  still  strangers  here. 
Opportunity  may  have  come  too  late  for  her.  For 
this  child  in  her  lap  there  may,  however,  be  some  sort 
of  hope  and  happiness  in  later  years.  Neither  was 
possible  for  it  had  it  remained  at  the  old  home. 

All  the  time,  one  great  train  after  another  pulls 
in  from  the  east  and  discharges  its  motley  population, 
— its  freight — picturesque,  pathetic,  pitiful.  The 
parti-colored  crowds  condense,  flow  together,  break 
apart,  a  kaleidoscope  of  humanity,  a  human  picture 
whose  human  interest  cannot  be  surpassed  for  any 
man  who  thinks.  And  in  these  crowds  automatically 
if  not  apathetically  labor  ticket  sellers,  gate  men  and 
interpreters  who  have  their  work  well  cut  out  for 
them.  Beyond  their  preliminary  service  comes  the 
more  inquiring  and  more  human  ministration  of  the 
Immigration  Office,  where  all  these  folk  are  sorted, 
analyzed,  classified  and  distributed. 

Supervising  this  classification  and  distribution 
there  must  be  some  accepted  head,  just  as  there  must 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  GOVERNMENT  OFFICIAL  95 
be  in  the  assembling  of  these  multitudes  on  the 
eastern  side  of  the  ocean.  As  much  depends  upon 
the  judgment  and  the  wisdom  of  the  one  official  as 
upon  the  other.  Certainly  very  much  rests  with 
the  Commissioner  of  Immigration  at  Winnipeg. 
His  must  be  sympathy  and  resource  as  well.  He 
must  see  it  to  that  these  strangers  be  not  robbed, 
that  they  shall  have  decent  food  and  immediate 
opportunity  for  work,  so  far  as  that  may  be.  It  is 
he  who  must  devise  comfort  for  weary  and  heavy- 
laden,  who  must  stand  for  the  idea  of  his  government 
with  them.  He  may  not  be  arbiter  immediate,  and 
must  report  to  his  superior  what  he  has  done  and 
what  he  thinks  might  better  be  done.  Regarding 
him  at  least  this  much  may  be  said,  that  he,  perhaps 
more  than  any  other  man,  is  prepared  to  pass  on  the 
qualifications  as  citizens  of  those  who  pass  before 
him  day  by  day.  The  world's  problem  in  immigra- 
tion lies  before  him  every  hour.  It  is  not  theory  with 
him,  but  practice.  He  knows  what  Canada  gets,  and 
he  ought  to  know  what  Canada  needs. 

Most  of  the  discussions  of  the  year  1908  on  the 
immigration  problem  were  based  on  the  report  of  Mr. 
Bruce  Walker.  Much  of  the  water  of  that  mill  has 
now  run  by,  but  the  Commissioner's  attack  on 


96    .  THE  SOWING 

immigrant-quality  in  general  should  be  made  plain. 
He  takes  up  first  the  question  of  those  unfortunates 
who  are  paid  to  leave  their  own  country,  his  comment 
being  as  follows: 

"With  regard  to  the  State  Aided  and  Rate  Aided. 
These  are  the  products  of  the  distress  committees 
and  of  the  workhouses.  The  distress  committees 
usually  operate  through  some  recognized  booking 
agency,  providing  the  fares  for  the  transportation, 
.  and  leaving  such  booking  agency  to  provide  the 
employment  on  the  Canadian  side.  There  is  ho 
supervision  of  an  official  "character  exercised  over 
these  emigrants.  The  Emigration  Branch  of  the 
Department  of  the  Interior  is  neither  advised  of 
their  numbers,  their  character,  nor  the  date  of  their 
sailing. 

"With  reference  to  the  Rate  Aided  emigration, 
that  is  the  emigration  provided  by  the  Poor  Law 
Guardians,  there  is  a  certain  measure  of  control. 
When,  for  any  reason,  the  Guardians  of  the  district 
are  satisfied  that  the  inmate  of  a  workhouse  is  capable 
of  working  his  way  in  Canada,  or  elsewhere,  under 
new  conditions,  and  with  a  fair  start,  they  apply  to 
the  President  of  the  Local  Government  Board  for 
permission  to  appropriate  from  the  public  rates  under 


Bruce    Walker 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  GOVERNMENT  OFFICIAL  97 
the  Poor  Law  a  sum  necessary  for  the  emigration  to 
Canada,  say,  of  such  person,  or  persons." 

The  first  thought  which  comes  to  mind  is  that  if 
Canada  must  search  in  workhouses  for  her  future 
citizens,  she  necessarily  is  rather  in  a  bad  way  in  the 
matter  of  her  citizenship.  Persons  do  not  go  to  the 
workhouse  ordinarily  so  long  as  they  are  fit  and  able 
to  make  a  living  for  themselves  in  their  own  country. 
This  is  not  in  the  least  to  entertain  a  harsh  or  callous 
frame  of  mind  toward  these  unfortunates;  nor  does 
the  Commissioner  himself  entertain  any  such  feeling. 
On  the  contrary,  bad  as  we  would  be  disposed  to  call 
this  source  of  immigration,  he  declares  it  to  be  better 
than  many  others,  and  goes  on  to  say: 

"  Emigration  of  this  class  is  less  in  quantity  than 
that  of  any  other  to  which  I  have  referred,  and  I  think 
enquiry  will  bear  me  out  in  saying  that  notwith- 
standing its  source  it  is  perhaps  a  little  more  satis- 
factory than  either  that  emigrated  by  the  Unem- 
ployed Workmen's  Act,  or  the  operations  of  charitable 
organizations. 

"The  trouble,  however,  of  a  State  Aided  emigra- 
tion is  that  it  is  dealing  with  a  class  of  persons  whose 
position  is  either  due  to  their  own  intemperance  or 
incompetence,  and  who,  for  the  most  part,  lack  that 


98  THE  SOWING 

self-confidence  and  self-reliance  that  is  necessary  for 

success  in  a  new  country,  and  under  new  conditions. 

"I  am  satisfied  that  an  extremely  large  proportion 
of  the  non-successes  in  English  emigration  is  due  to 
the  unreasonable  proportion  of  that  class  of  emigra- 
tion sent  to  Canada.  In  Scotland,  where  the  propor- 
tion of  emigrants  to  the  population  is  more  than 
double  what  it  is  in  England,  there  are  no  such 
philanthropic  societies  and  no  such  charitable  organ- 
izations engaged  in  emigration  work,  and  you  cannot 
but  have  observed  how  few  cases  of  non -success  there 
are  amongst  the  Scottish  emigrants."* 

Mr.  Walker  touched  upon  the  origin  of  the  whole 
series  of  evils — the  importation  of  the  city  poor,  the 
waste  humanity  of  London,  picked  up  bodily  in  all  its 
helplessness,  brought  to  Canada,  passage-paid,  and 
then  deposited  upon  the  land,  every  man  to  fend  for 
his  miserable  self. 

"As  most  of  these  organizations,"  he  says,  "carry 
on  their  operations  in  large  centres  of  population, 
they  seldom  reach  persons  of  agricultural  experience 
and  consequently  have,  in  proportion  to  their  numbers 
sent  to  Canada,  very  few  claims  for  the  bonus  given 
by  the  Department  to  persons  bent  upon  agricultural 


"The  Unemployed  in  Canada." 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  GOVERNMENT  OFFICIAL  99 
pursuits  in  Canada;  and  I  think,  therefore,  it  would 
be  judicious  to  withhold  the  bonus  in  the  case  of  any 
person  obtaining  either  a  free  or  an  assisted  passage, 
ability  to  pay  the  necessary  transportation  charge 
being  one  of  the  most  satisfactory  proofs  of  thrift 
and  industry." 

The  state  of  facts  disclosed  by  the  report  caused 
general  surprise  and  discussion  throughout  the 
country.  The  government  adopted  the  recom- 
mendation touching  the  bonus,  knowing  that  it  would 
check  English  immigration  in  numbers,  for  a  time 
at  least,  but  that  it  would  operate  for  a  better,  cleaner, 
abler  quality  of  settlers.  So  followed  the  act  requir- 
ing inspection  and  supervision.  The  bars  went  up, 
part  way  at  least,  against  the  hopeless  poor. 

All  this  may  be  dry  bureau  work,  or  matter 
throbbing  with  human  interest,  whichever  way  you 
choose  to  look  at  it.  To  the  writer  it  offers  rather 
the  latter  phase.  The  average  citizen  of  the  Ameri- 
can continent  has  given  little  actual  study  to  the 
problems  of  future  citizenship  as  affected  by  future 
immigration.  Least  of  all  has  he  studied  the  question 
from  the  viewpoint  of  the  man  most  vitally  concerned. 
Sometimes  it  is  the  rawest  immigrant  who  believes 
in  putting  up  the  bars  and  allowing  no  more  raw 


100  THE  SOWING 

immigrants  to  come.  Beyond  his  own  immediate 
family  or  friends,  this  problem  customarily  does  not 
affect  him  seriously.  Neither  does  it  come  within  the 
purview  of  the  careless  and  indifferent  citizen  already 
in,  whether  of  this  generation  or  one  earlier  to  arrive 
here,  and  rather  busy  with  making  his  own  living. 

The  total  area  of  Canada  cannot  be  increased  by 
one  foot.  The  stature  of  its  citizenship  can  be  in- 
creased by  many  a  good  cubit.  The  time  is  coming 
when  we,  who  are  ignorant  or  indifferent,  must  face 
this  inexorable  situation.  We  cannot  alter  our 
acreage,  but  we  can  alter  our  citizenship,  perhaps 
can  improve  it;  perhaps,  on  the  other  hand,  can 
assist  it  in  deteriorating. 

From  Winnipeg  station  you  may  see  the  world 
and  the  world's  problem.  Students  of  all  sorts  have 
gazed  on  these  scenes.  Among  these  have  been 
many  Socialists,  who  have  been  prompt  to  comment 
on  what  they  believe  these  scenes  mean  for 
the  future.  Indeed,  it  is  difficult  to  see  these 
hordes  of  hopeless  poor,  and  to  reflect  that  they  come 
from  that  portion  of  the  world  boasting  the  proudest 
aristocracies,  the  greatest  wealth,  the  most  advanced 
thought,  and  not  see  how  easy  is  the  thought  of 
Socialism. 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  GOVERNMENT  OFFICIAL  101 
From  Winnipeg  one  may  look  southward  to  the 
great  Republic,  and  see,  if  one  likes,  an  army  reputed 
to  represent  some  million  Socialists — who  have  been 
driven  to  their  creed  by  the  same  causes  which 
brought  hither  these  helpless  poor.  Socialism  in  the 
United  States  now  declares  that  national,  state  and 
municipal  governments  are  mere  adjuncts  of  the 
merciless  industrial  machinery.  The  economic  re- 
sources of  the  great  Republic  have  been  so  operated 
for  private  profit  that  there  remains  little  actual 
authority  to  question  those  who  now  control  the 
government,  on  their  ability  to  make,  enforce  or  defy 
the  laws.  Industrialism  run  wild  has  put  the 
Republic's  politics  where  it  is  to-day.  It  has  put  the 
hopeless  poor  man  where  he  is  to-day,  in  the  United 
States  and  in  England.  To  change  all  this,  Socialism 
declares  we  must  have  an  entirely  new  philosophy 
of  government.  We  need  not  agree  with  Socialism 
to  this  extent.  Yet  we  may  perhaps  none  the  less  be 
allowed  to  say  that  we  need  a  new  theory  of  life. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE    VIEWPOINT    OF    AN    IDEALIST. 

LET  us  choose  for  our  speaker  now  not  some  well- 
known  figure  of  the  political  or  economic  world.  Let 
us  rather  hear  the  beliefs  of  a  man  who  has  put  his 
theories  into  practice,  and  out  of  practice  brought 
success.  The  experience  of  William  Pearson,  of 
Winnipeg,  a  Canadian  now,  though  once  an  English- 
man, city  bred,  has  the  vital  quality  of  the  human 
document,  since  what  he  has  learned  of  Canada  has 
been  from  the  ground  up,  first  as  a  settler  on  the  land 
himself,  and  afterward  as  a  dealer  in  land,  settling 
other  farmers  on  the  soil  in  the  great  colonization 
enterprise  of  which  he  is  the  head.  A  man  in  that 
work  must  use  men  as  he  finds  them,  and  he  finds 
many  ignorant,  many  weak  and  many  ready  to 
despair.  It  is  somewhat  surprising  to  find  a  "land 
man"  who  is  not  a  cynic;  but  here  we  may  offer  the 
strange  product — an  altruistic  business  man,  whose 

creed  of  life  is  that  before  you  can  uplift  a  man,  you 

102 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  AN  IDEALIST  103 

first  must  feed  him;  that  is  to  say,  help  him  to  feed 
himself.  This  seems  worth  elaboration  in  the 
believer's  own  words: 

"  I  once  heard  a  Yukon  missionary  who,  in  describ- 
ing his  journeys  in  the  Yukon  country,  told  of  two 
little  mice  he  once  found  in  the  sledge  tracks  of  the 
icy  way.  Neither  of  these  mice  could  free  itself  from 
the  deep  groove  in  which  it  found  itself.  One  he 
picked  up,  warmed  and  saved.  For  the  other,  aid 
came  too  late.  It  had  frozen  and  died  in  the  groove 
before  help  reached  it.  I'm  a  land  man,  but  that 
little  story  got  home  to  me. 

"  Sometimes  in  my  work  I  stand  and  look  out  over 
the  undulations  of  the  prairie,  league  after  league  of 
grass,  with  only  the  suggestion  of  habitation  afforded 
by  the  homesteaders'  shacks,  miles  apart.  Perhaps 
in  the  distance  there  may  be  the  silver  thread  of  some 
distant  lake,  the  glory  of  a  sunset  across  it,  or  the  grey 
of  the  prairie  twilight.  At  any  time  it  is  beautiful; 
and  at  no  time  do  I  fail  to  contrast  such  a  scene  with 
those  offered  by  the  squalid  delimitations  of  brick  in 
which  humanity  must  swarm  in  the  cities.  There  is 
something  uplifting  in  this  spaciousness.  Here  there 
is  opportunity,  while  back  yonder  men  and  women  in 
millions  are  workless,  foodless,  hopeless." 


104  THE  SOWING 

Turning  from  a  contemplation  of  these  great 
empty  lands,  yearning  to  be  peopled,  Mr.  Pearson 
took  up  the  age-old  conflict  of  man  with  himself — 
the  human  equation — as  an  element  in  this  problem: 

"  Every  man  realizes  that  he  himself  is  the  battle- 
ground of  two  opposing  forces,  the  selfish  and  the 
unselfish,  the  noble  and  the  base.  Every  thoughtful 
man  believes  that  these  forces  have  been  warring  on 
this  earth  ever  since  man  has  lived  on  it,  perhaps 
many  ages  before.  The  measure  of  tfee  world's  true 
progress  has  been  the  measure  of  the  victory  of  the 
forces  of  altruism  over  those  of  egoism.  When  the 
material,  the  sensual,  the  ignoble,  have  triumphed 
over  the  finer  phases  of  man's  nature,  men  are  agreed 
that  the  world  has  been  the  worse  for  it.  We  all 
believe  that  in  humanity,  in  benevolence,  in  ideals  of 
life,  this  old  earth  is  slowly  improving.  We  believe 
in  evolution.  Can  any  thoughtful  man  look  back  on 
the  history  of  the  race  without  recognizing  that  there 
has  been  a  moral,  as  well  as  a  material  and  physical 
evolution  ? 

"Nothing  is  clearer  to  my  mind  than  that  there  is 
a  world  purpose.  This  purpose  is  the  eventual 
triumph  of  the  unselfish,  the  impersonal — the  intel- 
lectual and  spiritual  side  of  man's  nature — over  those 


William    Pearson 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  AN  IDEALIST  105 

baser  forces  to  which  we  naturally  are  most  ready  to 
respond.  It  is  the  evolution  from  the  lower  to  the 
higher  type,  that  by  slow  degrees  has  been  going  on 
in  the  world  for  countless  ages.  In  proportion  as  we 
subordinate  our  selfish  ends  to  this  great  force  and 
principle  governing  the  world,  in  just  that  proportion 
will  we  be  made  a  factor  in  achieving  the  inevitable 
result,  towards  which  the  countless  millions  of  the 
dead  and  living  of  men  have  for  ages  been  strivingi 
with  sightless  or  seeing  eyes. 

"  For  me,  I  like  to  think — it  is  an  inspiration  for 
me  to  believe — that  though  I  am  merely  a  plain 
business  man,  differing  in  no  essential  particular  from 
millions  of  others  of  my  generation,  I  can,  if  I  am  in 
harmony  with  the  eternal  purpose,  be  used  to  do 
some  little  things  to  bring  nearer  the  manifest 
destiny  of  the  ages.  I  feel  myself  a  soldier  in  an 
all  conquering  army,  with  the  greatest  of  generals  in 
command  and  the  greatest  of  causes  to  fight  for.  On 
the  muster  roll  of  this  army  are  the  names  of  all  the 
great  men  who  have  fought  in  the  past  for  the  physi- 
cal, intellectual,  and  moral  advancement  of  mankind. 
My  comrades  are  the  men  who  are  to-day  the  world's 
best  and  bravest.  I  can  understand  enough  of  the 
great  plan  of  campaign  to  realize  my  own  duty,  and 


106  THE  SOWING 

this  braces  me  up  to  '  play  the  game'.  What^esprit 
de  corps  is  to  a  fighting  force  or  a  business  enter- 
prise, what  the  motive  power  is  to  a  factory,  that, 
and  more,  is  this  realization  of " intelligent  sympathy 
and  cordial  harmony  with  the  world  purpose  to  any 
man  realizing  it.  It  is  his  inspiration. 

"Nowadays  are  heard  many  complaints  of  the 
sharp  line  of  cleavage  between  the  sacred  and  secular. 
By  many,  religion  has  come  to  be  regarded  as  a 
function,  voluntarily  assumed  with  our  frock  coats  on 
Sunday,  and  put  on  one  side  when  we  get  into  our 
business  suits  on  Monday  morning.  During  the 
week,  in  moments  of  leisure,  or  when  any  startling 
circumstance  arouses  us,  we  temporarily  make  an 
excursion  from  the  world  of  business  into  that  of 
suffering,  and  we  perform  some  unselfish  office  of 
charity.  When  we  have  done  so,  we  turn  back  and 
resume  our  interrupted  business  life! 

"This  is  pre-eminently  a  commercial  age.  It  is 
reasonable  to  suppose  that  this  is  only  a  phase  of 
evolution — that  just  as  there  have  been  various  ages 
in  geology,  and  as  in  the  history  of  mankind  there 
have  been  the  stone  age,  the  bronze  age,  the  patri- 
archal age,  the  feudal  age,  so  this  so-called  age  of 
commercialism  will  have  its  day  and  cease  to  be. 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  AN  IDEALIST  107 

"The  day  is  coming — it  is  right  here — when  the 
wealth  accumulated  by  our  captains  of  industry 
through  the  operations  of  the  present  day  cruel,  con- 
scienceless, commercial  code  will,  in  the  public  mind, 
be  the  measure  of  their  reproach,  instead  of  their 
public  admiration.  At  the  present  time,  in  banks 
and  other  important  institutions,  the  character  of 
the  men  behind  the  enterprise  is  regarded  by  the 
prospective  investor  as  of  as  much  importance  as  the 
institution's  working  capital.  Under  this  new  regime 
that  test  would  be  extended  to  all  enterprises.  Once 
assured  of  the  character  of  the  men  behind  them,  the 
strength  of  public  confidence  will  compel  success.  I 
believe  it  can  be  demonstrated  even  now  that  a 
business  may  be  run  along  the  lines  of  the  world 
purpose  and  yet  be  a  commercial  success;  and  this, 
not  in  spite  of  its  subordination  to  the  world  purpose, 
but  because  of  it. 

"This  is  not  the  general  opinion  as  yet.  It  is 
contrary  to  established  usage.  It  squarely  opposes 
the  whole  system  of  modern  business.  But,  already 
there  are  a  number  of  out-standing  examples  that 
commercial  success  can  be  based  on  this  principle. 
On  this  side  the  Atlantic  are  'Golden  Rule'  Jones, 
and  on  the  other,  the  Peases  of  Darlington,  Cadbury 


108  THE  SOWING 

of  cocoa  fame,  Sir  Christopher  Furness,  and  many 

others. 

"This  is  no  mere  theory  with  me.  I  know  that 
in  my  own  business  career  I  have  taken  up  many 
propositions  that  from  the  business  standpoint  of  our 
age  seemed  entirely  too  big  for  me.  In  every  case  in 
which  I  am  conscious  that  my  motives  were  not  self- 
seeking,  but  unselfish,  these  enterprises  became 
commercially  profitable. 

"Twenty  centuries  of  civilization  have  produced 
the  modern  working  code,  which  says  that  'business 
is  business,'  and  that  business  and  a  high  standard  of 
thought  and  conduct — outside  the  demonstrated  fact 
that  honesty  is  the  best  policy  because  it  does  not  pay 
to  be  a  rogue — have  little  or  nothing  in  common. 
The  revelations  of  '  graft '  in  business  and  in  public  life 
are  evidence  of  what  selfishness  is  bringing  us  to; 
just  as  the  awakening  of  the  minds  and  consciences 
of  men  as  to  the  extent  and  the  tendency  of  these  evils 
is  one  of  the  most  hopeful  signs  of  the  times. 

"It  is,  of  course,  commonplace  to  say  that  these 
evils,  and  all  the  others  that  affiict  this  world,  could 
be  remedied  at  once  if  all  men  would  act  from  unselfish 
instead  of  selfish  motives,  if  they  would  adopt  altruism 
as  the  governing  force  of  their  lives.  Of  course  they 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  AN  IDEALIST  109 

do  not  and  will  not,  and  out  of  this  arises  the  struggle 
toward  better  conditions. 

"Now,  see  how  irrational  we  are — how  we  make 
ourselves  utterly  nullify  our  own  efforts  for  the  world's 
betterment.  Our  plan  of  following  out  the  accepted 
business  code,  that  is  part  of  the  present  fabric  of 
civilization,  produces  destitution  and  vice  in  all  the 
congested  cities.  The  kind-hearted  help  by  purse  and 
action  such  cases  as  come  under  their  own  observa- 
tion. When  destitution  becomes  worse  than  usual, 
when  municipal  soup  kitchens  have  to  be  established 
and  the  bread  line  is  formed,  through  our  taxes  and 
voluntary  subscriptions  we  make  organized  efforts  to 
relieve  distress.  But  destitution  is  an  effect,  not  a 
cause.  We  tinker  away  at  the  symptoms  and  leave 
untouched  the  origin  of  the  disease.  Civilization  is 
pouring  into  its  cesspools,  our  city  slums,  its  waste 
human  product.  With  every  decade  the  stream 
becomes  fouler  and  its  volume  greater.  Civilization's 
only  remedy  for  the  evils  itself  is  responsible  for  is  to 
dip  away  at  the  cesspool,  sometimes  languidly,  some- 
times energetically,  sometimes  feverishly.  All  the 
time  it  is  doing  this,  the  established  order  of  modern 
business  life  is  creating  the  well-springs  that  are  the 
fountain-head  of  the  stream  filling  the  cesspool,  and 


110  THE  SOWING 

filling  it  far  faster  than  any  effort  of  society  can  bail  it 
out.  Isn't  that  a  grim  comment  on  the  intelligence 
of  the  twentieth  century? 

"  If  we  had  any  such  problem  in  our  own  business, 
would  we  proceed  on  any  such  lines?  Wouldn't  we 
cut  right  to  the  root  of  the  trouble,  and  dry  up  the 
sources  of  the  stream,  instead  of  ineffectually  bailing 
away  at  the  pool?  Isn't  it  significant — doesn't  it 
show  the  need  of  civilization  for  a  corrective — that 
the  daily  activities  of  right-thinking  men  should 
unwittingly  or  unwillingly  create  the  very  conditions 
they  intermittently  seek  to  ameliorate  ?  One  does  not 
need  be  a  communist  or  a  Socialist  to  figure  this  out. 

"  Here  are  you  and  I  looking  over  miles  and  miles 
of  unoccupied  fertile  land.  Yonder  are  thousands  of 
men  and  women  who,  if  they  could  be  given  a  start 
out  here,  would  repay  society  a  thousand-fold  for  the 
investment  necessary  to  transplant  them.  They  are 
to-day,  or  they  are  in  danger  of  becoming,  a  charge 
on  the  civilization  which  created  the  conditions 
responsible  for  what  they  are.  In  a  new  environment 
they  would,  after  training,  become  producers  instead 
of  present  or  prospective  paupers — a  strength  to 
civilization  instead  of  a  burden  and  a  menace  to  the 
community. 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  AN  IDEALIST  111 

"  Of  the  many  millions  of  the  hopeless  poor  many 
are  potentially  efficient  members  of  society,  however 
great  a  burden  on  civilization  they  may  be  at  the 
present  time.  Removed  from  their  present  environ- 
ment, and  placed  in  one  providing  them  with  stimulus, 
with  opportunity,  ambitions  unrealizable  in  their 
present  circumstances  would  blossom  forth  and  bear 
fruit.  Not  only  would  untold  good  result  to  the 
individual  thus  transplanted,  and  to  his  children, 
raised  in  a  healthy  environment,  and  made  self-reliant 
Canadians  of  a  more  hardy  breed  than  the  parents, 
but  the  congested  centres  from  which  they  come 
also  would  experience  benefit,  for  their  removal  would 
mean  increased  opportunity — more  work,  more  food 
— for  those  remaining.  By  as  many  of  the  waste 
products  of  civilization  as  are  moved  to  happier 
surroundings,  by  so  much  will  better  chances  be  given 
to  those  left  behind. 

"Opportunity  is  the  birthright  of  every  man. 
He  has,  or  should  have,  the  right  to  'life,  liberty  and 
the  pursuit  of  happiness'.  Of  these  rights  modern 
civilization  is  depriving  millions.  The  duty  of  those 
realizing  their  fellows'  deprivation  is  to  restore  these 
rights.  And,  as  I  said  before,  the  working  out  of 
this  is  a  business  proposition,  just  as  much  as  it  is  a 


ll2  THE  SOWING 

part  of  the  evolution  of  the  ages.  It  demands  or- 
ganization, capital,  executive  ability,  precisely  the 
equipment  possessed  by  business  men.  Hence  these, 
to  say  nothing  of  professing  Christians,  are  the  men 
to  whom  the  need  of  the  hour  puts  the  matter  right 
up  as  a  duty. 

"When  a  gardener  transplants  a  plant  which  is 
tender,  weak,  and  new  to  the  place  where  it  is  to  grow, 
he  puts  it  near  some  trellis,  or  stake,  or  post,  already 
firmly  established  there.  I'm  not  much  of  a  philo- 
sopher, but  it  looks  to  me  as  though  there  might  be 
some  sort  of  an  idea  in  that  to  reconcile  this  conflict 
over  the  helpless  poor.  Some  of  them  could  not  be 
transplanted  at  all ;  but  when  I  look  at  this  big  new 
country,  it  seems  to  me  we  might  take  a  great  many 
of  the  potentially  effective  and  plant  them  out  here 
among  our  well-established  farmers  until  they  could 
take  root  and  learn  how  to  grow;  or  plant  them  in 
new  tracts  of  land,  and  intersperse  the  hardy,  practi- 
cal farmers  among  them. 

"This  would  not,  at  first  thought,  commend  itself 
to  the  business  code  of  the  present  day  as  the 
obvious  and  most  profitable  method  of  colonization ; 
and  if  it  were  attempted  by  any  wealthy  philan- 
thropist, or  by  any  society,  or  by  any  government, 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  AN  IDEALIST  113 

it  would  mean  any  amount  of  difficulty,  anxiety  and 
hard  work!  Nevertheless,  if  undertaken,  not  for 
selfish  reasons,  I  believe  it  could  be  made  to  pay 
eventually.  I  believe  there  can  be  sweetness  and 
success  in  life,  even  in  the  twentieth  century.  In 
other  words,  I  believe  there  can  be  philanthropy  and 
business  both  in  colonization." 

So  much  then  for  idealism.  At  least  it  is  much 
more  practicable  in  its  doctrine  than  the  promiscuous 
charity  which  has  thrust  this  whole  question  of 
colonization  upon  two  countries.  And  in  these  days 
of  business,  speech  like  the  foregoing  is  rare  and 
refreshing.  It  is  as  cool  drink  to  a  man  a-thirst. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE    VIEWPOINT    OF    A    BUSINESS    MAN. 

THE  history  of  warlike  deeds  concerned  with 
Canada,  the  school  book  story  of  Wolfe  and  his  troops 
— for  long  years  that  was  England's  choicest  offering 
to  her  youth  by  way  of  information  regarding  her 
choicest  province.  English  ignorance  was  dense 
regarding  England's  opportunities,  which  for  centuries 
here  lay  waste  and  wasted.  But  now  it  is  not  a 
question  of  Trafalgar  or  Waterloo.  It  is  not  even  a 
question  of  Quebec.  It  is  late  in  the  day  to  rest  on 
the  glory  of  Crecy  or  Agincourt.  In  these  days  other 
and  different  battles  must  be  fought  by  England — 
battles  harder  than  those  earlier  ones. 

Over  a  century  ago  the  United  Colonies  gave 
Canada  to  England,  when  they  helped  her  to  take 
Quebec  from  the  French.  About  ten  years  ago  the 
United  States  gave  Canada  again  to  England,  when 
again  it  sent  a  scout  and  guide  to  show  England  why, 
and  where,  and  how! 

114 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  BUSINESS  MAN  115 
Let  us  be  quite  fair  upon  both  sides.  Sir  Gilbert 
Parker's  "Yankee"  who  found  the  way  to  the  Heights 
of  Abraham  was  very  likely  English  born.  Colonel  A. 
D.  Davidson,  handler  of  one  of  the  largest  transac- 
tions in  raw  lands  ever  known,  was  Canadian  born, 
although  he  spent  most  of  his  life  in  the  United 
States  and  got  his  education  in  land-selling  in  the 
northwestern  states  of  that  country.  Western  Can- 
ada waited  for  him,  a  stage  ready  set  for  Hamlet  when 
the  latter  should  appear.  Davidson  was  not  a 
melancholy  Dane,  but  an  optimistic  Canadian 
Yankee;  and  he  made  no  bad  sort  of  Hamlet  at  the 
time! 

The  story  of  his  discovery  is  one  of  the  greatest 
industrial  stories  of  the  world.  Indeed,  it  seems  a 
thing  of  fate,  and  Davidson  himself  a  man  appointed. 
He  had  large  experience.  He  knew  all  about  the 
soils.  He  was  a  hard-headed,  unspectacular  sort  of 
man,  with  few  personal  frills  and  a  general  habit  of 
getting  results. 

About  ten  years  ago  the  wheat  horizon  in  western 
Canada  was  very  narrow.  Farming  had  been  tried 
for  thirty  years,  and  all  that  could  be  called  safe 
wheat  country  was  a  part  of  Manitoba,  a  little  of 
eastern  Saskatchewan,  and  a  strip  near  Edmonton. 


116  THE  SpWING 

There  had  been  hard  years.  Lower  Saskatchewan 
had  lost  almost  all  its  settlers.  Family  after  family, 
who  had  come  out  with  the  old  foolish  English  idea 
of  becoming  "landed  proprietors,"  had  failed  in  the 
fight,  lost  all  they  had,  and  been  reduced  to  penury. 
The  "course  of  empire"  seemed  to  end  just  west  of 
Winnipeg. 

The  first  railway  did  not  bring  success  at  once, 
because  it  could  not  bring  wheat  out  of  a  wheatless 
empire,  which  lay  hopeless  and  almost  abandoned. 
All  the  world,  backed  by  thirty  years  of  experience, 
said  that  wheat  could  not  be  raised  farther  west  than 
a  little  distance  beyond  Winnipeg.  "Is  that  true?" 
asked  Davidson.  "I  do  not  believe  it!" 

It  is  a  singular  thing  how,  when  the  world  needs  a 
skeptic  and  a  revolutionist,  a  scout  in  industry,  that 
man,  sometimes  with  small  pomp  and  circumstance, 
usually  appears.  Colonel  Davidson,  fortified  by  his 
long  experience  in  settling  Minnesota  and  Dakota, 
made  a  journey  for  himself  west  into  Alberta,  north 
to  Edmonton,  then  back,  and  all  over  Saskatchewan. 
He  went  out  into  the  country,  far  from  railways,  and 
took  with  him  a  spade.  As  he  travelled,  continually 
he  dug  and  tested  and  examined  the  soil.  Presently 
there  was  issued  to  the  world  the  singular  statement 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  BUSINESS  MAN  117 
— all  heresy,  of  course! — that  the  soil  of  the  Saskat- 
chewan valley  and  western  Canada  generally  was  as 
rich  in  wheat-growing  elements  as  any  in  the  world. 
He  backed  up  this  bold  declaration  with  another  to 
the  effect  that  if  any  considerable  body  of  land  were 
for  sale,  he  stood  ready  to  buy;  and,  moreover,  he 
would  settle  it  with  men  who  knew  how  to  farm!  He 
even  had  the  assurance  to  predict  that  if  he  did  what 
he  was  planning  to  do,  his  settlers  and  those  who 
would  follow  them  into  western  Canada  would 
shortly  be  producing  wheat  to  the  tune  of  many 
millions  of  bushels  each  year. 

"Of  course  this  cannot  be  possible!"  said  the  wise 
men  of  England  and  eastern  Canada.  "It  is  impos- 
sible, or  we  should  have  known  it  two  hundred  and 
fifty  years  ago!  Moreover,  it  is  impossible,  because 
we  ourselves  have  proved  it  so  for  thirty  years!" 

No  one  would  admit  that  an  empire  had  lain 
hidden  for  two  centuries.  No  one  would  believe  that 
a  plain  man  could  in  twenty  minutes  add  a  hundred 
million  pounds  to  the  wealth  of  England  and  the 
world.  But  in  time  this  revolutionary  truth  no  longer 
could  be  denied. 

Even  after  the  Canadian  Pacific  had  laid  rails 
across  the  continent,  almost  anybody  might  have 


118  .  THE  SOWING 

land  who  was  fool  enough  to  ask  the  Canadian 
Government  for  it ;  as  may  be  seen  from  one  historic 
incident.  The  railroad  bee  buzzed  idly  here  and 
there,  and  the  government  ever  was  ready  to  erect 
its  ears  at  the  suggestion  of  railroads.  One  fully 
inadequate  railroad  concern  got  a  land  grant  of  a 
million  and  a  half  acres  of  land,  stipulated  in  the 
terms  of  the  grant  to  be  "land  fairly  fit  for  settle- 
ment." Years  passed,  and  the  directors  of  this 
concern  still  claimed  that  they  could  not  find  in  all 
Saskatchewan  so  much  land  fit  for  any  kind  of  settle- 
ment— a  statement  which  the  government  did  not 
dare  deny/ 

This  railroad  languidly  built  a  brief  mileage,  and 
then  languidly  "went  broke" ;  but  it  was  adjudged  to 
have  earned  its  land  grant,  so  that  in  1894  it  could 
pass  title  of  these  lands  to  a  real  estate  concern, 
which  took  over  the  entire  grant  as  attached  to  the 
original  charter.  The  bondholders  got  for  their  share 
the  railroad  itself,  a  languid  and  rather  purposeless 
sort  of  affair.  Which  were  the  worse  discontented, 
the  bondholders  or  the  landholders,  it  were  hard  to 
say;  but  certainly  neither  one  of  them  cared  much 
for  the  land.  It  was  not  until  some  years  later  that 
land  was  proved  to  be  land  in  western  Canada.  In  . 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  BUSINESS  MAN  119 
1906  the  bondholders  sold  their  railroad  within  six 
hours  after  the  time  it  was  offered  on  the  market. 
Times  had  changed  by  then. 

The  railroad  company  sued  the  Government  of 
Canada,  meantime,  and  demanded  that  they  be 
allowed  several  million  acres  additional  land  from 
which  to  make  their  justly  celebrated  choice  of  land 
"fairly  fit  for  settlement."  They  brought  abundance 
of  experts  to  show  that  all  this  country  was  practically 
barren — in  short,  they  proved  this  to  be  true  for  a 
country  over  hundreds  of  miles  of  which  there  is  to-day 
growing  wheat  as  thick  as  it  can  stand!  Even  the 
culled  lands  of  Saskatchewan  now  bring  four  times  as 
much  as  the  best  selections  were  considered  worth 
ten  years  ago. 

Other  experts  were  brought  by  the  government 
to  show  that  this  soil  really  would  grow  wheat.  Upon 
the  testimony  of  these  latter,  the  Dominion  Govern- 
ment finally  declined  to  amend  the  original  grant. 
This  suit  hung  fire  in  the  court  for  a  long  time.  The 
Liberal  party  wished  it  settled,  and  allowed  judgment 
to  be  taken  against  the  government.  It  paid  cash 
for  this  land  to  the  final  holders  of  the  land  grant,  and 
so  it  got  back  into  the  possession  of  Canada  what  the 


120  THE  SOWING 

earlier  holders  had  treated  as  a  gift  horse  with  a  very 

bad  mouth. 

It  was  just  at  this  time  that  the  Canadian-Yankee 
Davidson  arrived,  with  a  conviction  of  his  own. 
With  his  own  spade  he  had  been  digging  the  founda- 
tions for  an  empire.  Large  capital  promptly  went 
behind  him.  From  that  time  on  there  went  forward 
one  of  the  swiftest  and  most  romantic  business 
dramas  ever  played  in  anytime  or  region  of  the  world. 
Then  it  was  that  the  question  of  proper  colonization 
clamored  imperatively  for  consideration.  He  were 
but  a  narrow  man  who  would  seek  to  narrow  the 
Davidson  credit  or  to  restrict  his  creed.  After  all, bluff 
Davidson  was  a  business  man.  He  worked  on  com- 
mercial lines,  asked  financial  backing  and  had  mighty 
little  to  do  with  stars  and  dreams.  He  would  prob- 
ably have  snorted  with  resentment  had  anyone  called 
him  an  idealist.  Yet  he  was  a  man  with  a  vision,  else 
he  would  not  have  digged  and  could  not  have  believed. 
Here,  now,  he  was  tied  to  a  promise  to  put  actual 
settlers  on  these  new  lands.  It  was  easy  to  test  the 
soil,  easy  to  buy  it  and  select  it; — but  to  settle  it,  that 
was  another  question. 

These  new  acres  must  find  settlers,  or  they  would 
be  worth  no  more  now  than  they  had  been  before. 


(.'clone!  A.  D.  Davidson 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  BUSINESS  MAN  121 
Davidson  and  all  his  associates  knew  this  perfectly 
well.  The  companies  formed  by  them  retailed  more 
land  than  has  ever  been  handled  in  the  same  time  in 
any  time  or  region  of  the  world.  What  was  their 
theory,  and  where  did  they  get  their  settlers?  It  is 
perfectly  obvious  that  the  opinion  of  so  large  an 
operator  is  of  the  greatest  interest  and  value.  A  man 
who  can  find  an  empire  ought  to  be  listened  to  when 
he  expresses  his  opinion  as  to  the  sort  of  human  beings 
most  desirable  to  settle  that  empire. 

Colonel  Davidson,  who  has  sent  thousands  of 
settlers  into  the  new  lands  of  two  countries,  who  has 
seen  thousands  of  men  win  and  lose  in  their  fight  for 
homes,  paints  a  picture  of  the  men  with  whom  he  had 
most  of  his  business  dealings  before  he  came  to 
Canada — the  frontiersmen  who  went  out  from  Iowa 
and  Illinois  to  Minnesota  and  the  Dakotas.  Briefly, 
he  says:  "Make  your  new  Canadian  like  that." 

Colonel  Davidson  refers  only  to  a  type — the  type 
which  answers  to-day  to  the  name  American.  Not 
in  all  cases  was  this  man  product  of  the  United  States, 
although  he  may  have  come  from  that  country.  He 
might  be  Englishman,  native  American,  Mennonite  or 
Swede.  Certainly  he  was  not  often  slum  dweller  from 
any  city  of  the  world.  He  was  strong  of  body, 


122  THE  SOWING 

stronger  yet  of  purpose.  Colonel  Davidson  ought  to 
know;  and  it  is  the  Davidson  theory  that,  no  matter 
what  the  derivation  of  this  type,  no  matter  from 
under  what  flag  it  comes,  this  type  will  win.  This 
theory  does  not  embrace  race,  origin,  geography  or 
environment.  In  short,  it  is  nothing  but  the  theory 
of  the  survival  of  the  fit  and  strong;  and  with  charity, 
with  religion,  with  politics  it  has  nothing  whatever 
to  do.  This  theory  is  wholly  in  tune  with  the  times. 
With  it,  England  and  all  the  rest  of  the  world  must 
reckon. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE    VIEWPOINT    OF    A    GOVERNOR-GENERAL. 

IN  THE  United  States  the  population  movement 
has  been  three-fold.  First  came  the  western  wave 
of  the  frontier  days;  then  the  past  decades  of  city- 
ward concentration.  The  third  movement  is  but 
beginning,  although  it  may  be  said  that  in  the  United 
States  to-day  there  now  pends  or  begins  a  move- 
ment outward  from  the  cities  to  the  farms.  The 
appeal  of  country  living  begins  to  make  itself  felt  in 
the  high-keyed  American  cities.  It  is  altogether 
likely  that  farm  life,  plus  the  modern  conveniences 
which  so  swiftly  are  changing  it  for  the  better,  will 
soon  be  held  in  an  altogether  new  estimation. 

So  far  as  Canada  is  concerned,  she  now  is  in  the 
first  of  these  population  movements,  although  that 
movement,  as  we  have  taken  pains  to  see,  falls  in  a 
different  day  and  must  be  made  in  a  different  way 
from  that  under  which  the  American  frontier  was 
settled.  What  complicates  Canada's  problem  is 

123 


124  THE  SOWING 

that  she  reckons  with  England,  which  has  long  ago 
reached  the  zenith  power  of  urban  development,  and 
already  clamors  for  the  third  and  last-mentioned 
trend  of  population,  that  back  toward  the  land. 
Indeed,  the  cry  of  "Back  to  the  Land"  is  the  cry  of 
all  the  world  to-day. 

Between  these  three  waves  of  movement  lies 
Canada.  She  is  beckoned  forward  by  the  hand  of 
one  century;  held  back  by  the  hands  of  a  century 
gone  by. 

•  What  has  the  world  ever  done  for  the  farmer? 
French  art  has  shown  us  pictures  of  him  as  the 
hopeless  peasant.  Saxon  literature  has  paid  him  the 
brutal  compliment  of  Mr.  Markham's  poem,  "The 
Man  With  the  Hoe."  It  is  rarely  that  you  shall  see 
anything  sympathetic  or  understanding  written, 
painted  or  said  regarding  the  farm  and  the  life  of  the 
farmer.  To  some  extent  there  is  justice  in  comment 
upon  the  monotony  of  life  upon  the  farm. 

"At  home  nothing  ever  happens.  The  wind 
sings  always  the  same  song  through  the  maple  trees. 
Sometimes  the  country  doctor  jogs  dustily  along  the 
empty  village  street,  or  the  stillness  of  summer  noon 
breaks  with  the  sudden  noise  of  children  let  loose 
from  school.  There  are  never  any  new  faces  at  church 


Earl  T.rey 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  GOVERNOR-GENERAL  125 
or  the  sociables,  where  one  calls  everybody  by  their 
first  names.  The  monotony  of  Sunday  only  replaces 
the  monotony  of  week  days,  and  all  the  holidays  are 
alike.  At  home  nothing  ever  happens." 

But  all  the  world  is  not  like  home.  Beyond  the 
unchanging  circle  of  the  prairies  is  the  city,  where 
there  are  new  thoughts  and  new  faces  and  new 
experiences,  and  life  is  full.  Over  all  the  prairie  lands 
and  over  all  its  villages  and  little  towns,  wherever 
there  are  young,  impatient  lives,  the  city  casts  its 
potent  spell.  The  city,  which  means  wider  life  and 
the  multifarious  activities  for  which  men  and  women 
are  made;  the  city,  which  is  rich  in  what  the  race  has 
striven  for  both  of  material  and  immaterial  things; 
the  city  which  is  highest  opportunity  for  the  wise  and 
strong,  but  which  is  also  broad  opportunity  for  all 
that  is  evil.  The  city  draws  youth  to  it  as  the 
magnet  draws  clean  metal,  and  youth  the  worst  of 
the  city  preys  remorselessly  upon.  That  is  the 
problem  that  the  best  of  the  city  must  meet. 

Financial  and  commercial  organization,  all  the 
great  machines  of  modern  progress,  are  tools  for  the 
development  of  cities.  We  have  invented  and 
applied  all  possible  conveniences  and  comforts  and 
allurements  for  townspeople,  and  until  lately  have 


126  THE  SOWING 

permitted  the  country  folk  to  shift  for  themselves. 
The  whole  force  of  modern  social  development  has 
been  directed  to  urban  growth.  The  result  of  all 
this  is  a  violation  of  the  great  law  of  supply  and 
demand.  The  city  calls  to  itself  thousands  more  in 
population  than  it  can  use.  It  overplays  its  hand. 
It  invites  its  own  destruction.  The  city  dwellers  are 
helpless  simply  because  there  are  too  many  of  them 
all  alike.  They  do  not  know  the  country ;  they  have* 
a  dread  and  a  contempt  for  it.  They  do  not  know 
how  to  go  to  the  country,  and  do  not  want  to  know. 
The  suffering  of  the  city  is  by  reason  of  a  wrong 
direction  of  life. 

Now,  this  suffering  bears  the  harder  on  Canada 
because  she  is  and  must  be  in  the  very  nature  of  things 
mainly  an  agricultural  country.  This  third  wave  of 
population  of  the  United  States  ought  to  be  made 
coincident  with  Canada's  first  frontier  wave.  She 
needs  farmers,  not  city  dwellers.  Yet  when  the 
unskilled  man,  the  weak  man,  the  illiterate  or  ineffici- 
ent man,  arrives  in  Canada,  he  rarely  turns  to  the 
farm.  The  life  he  has  known  at  home  is  the  life  o^ 
the  city.  He  has  become  gregarious  in  that  most 
intimate  association  of  grime  and  crime.  It  is  such 


JTHE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  GOVERNOR-GENERAL  127 
association  that  he  seeks  in  Canada.  What  shall  be 
done  with  him? 

In  March,  1908,  a  speaker  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons in  Ottawa,  opposing  the  Laurier  government's 
immigration  policy,  said :  "We  have  in  Canada  to-day 
in  our  cities  and  towns  a  very  considerable  number  of 
men  who  are  out  of  employment.  These  men  are 
very  largely  the  worst  of  the  class  of  immigrants  that 
has  been  brought  in  from  England  during  the  last 
year.  We  had  approximately  250,000  people  come 
to  Canada  last  year.  If  that  immigration  had  been 
sifted  in  some  way,  and  25,000  had  been  left  at  home, 
we  should  not  have  the  number  of  men  out  of  employ- 
ment which  we  now  have.  Twenty-five  thousand 
probably  will  cover  the  men  who  really  are  suffering 
in  Canada  to-day  from  want  of  employment,  and 
most  of  these  are  Englishmen.  It  is  certainly  the 
duty  of  the  government  to  provide  some  means, 
whether  by  making  more  stringent  regulations  at  our 
ports  on  this  side,  or  by  making  more  stringent 
regulations  at  the  ports  on  the  other  side,  of  keeping 
at  home  in  England  so  large  a  number  of  immigrants 
who,  once  arrived  in  Canada,  must  forever  be  a 
detriment  to  our  country." 

What  of  Canada's  25,000  unemployed — if  we  shall 


128  THE  SOWING 

accept  as  accurate  these  figures,  which  may  or  may 
not  be  correct  and  which  probably  fall  far  under  the 
mark  of  accuracy?  What  of  Canada's  newly- 
imported  problem  'of  the  London  bread-line  ?  Earl 
Grey,  the  Governor-General  of  the  Dominion,  in 
public  utterance,  declares  that  the  country  needs 
men ;  that  the  demand  for  labor  is  great,  the  supply 
small. 

"  If  you  were  to  ask  me,"  he  says,  "what  point  has 
struck  me  as  requiring  the  attention  of  those  who  can 
spare  sufficient  time  from  the  agreeable  business  of 
making  their  own  fortunes,  I  would  say  that  the  chief 
requisite  of  Canada  appears  to  me  to  be  the  taking  of 
such  steps  as  will  increase  the  supply  of  labor.  I  am 
impressed  by  the  evidence  which  has  reached  me  from 
every  side  of  the  way  in  which  agricultural  and 
industrial  development,  besides  great  public  works 
of  construction,  on  which  the  life  of  the  country 
depends,  are  kept  back  by  the  difficulty  of  obtaining 
labor." 

Yet  at  that  moment  there  were  nearly  25,000 
Englishmen  in  Canada  who  were  suffering  from  lack 
of  employment!  At  this  rate,  if  the  present  theory 
of  Canada's  relation  to  England  shall  obtain,  there 
may  in  ten  years,  possibly  in  five  years,  be  250,000 


1 1 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  GOVERNOR-GENERAL  129 
unemployed  men  in  Canada.  Most  of  these  will  con- 
tinue to  be  Englishmen.  What  will  Canada  do 
with  them? 

The  Governor-General  goes  on  to  say:  "There  is 
much  work  requiring  to  be  done,  which  the  English- 
man will  not  do,  and  for  which  it  would  appear  that 
foreign  labor  must  be  imported  from  outside." 

With  all  due  and  fitting  respect  for  the  Governor- 
General,  it  would  appear  to  an  impartial  outside 
observer  that  he  is  inviting  the  cooking  of  a  very 
handsome  kettle  of  fish!  Let  us  figure  it,  from  one  or 
two  angles.  All  England  feels  that  Canada  belongs 
to  her.  Ask  any  new-come  Englishman  as  to  that. 
Canada  is  full  and  will  be  fuller  of  Englishmen.  She 
has  an  unlimited  amount  of  work  to  do — upon  her 
comes  all  the  press  of  a  concentrated  century;  yet 
this  is  work  which  "  Englishmen  will  not  do!"  To  an 
impartial  observer  it  would  seem  that  this  sort  of 
Englishman  will  in  time  run  counter  to  the  Scriptural 
mandate  which  has  something  to  say  about  the 
sweat  of  the  brow.  Scandinavian,  German,  Irish, 
Galician,  seek  and  find  employment,  and  make  good 
Canadian  citizens.  Why  should  Englishmen  be  idle? 
And  if  they  persist  in  idleness,  why  should  Canada 
continue  to  receive  them — why  should  she  care  for 


130  THE  SOWING 

those  who  nourish  in  their  bosoms  neither  affection 
for  Great  Britain  nor  desire  for  Canada  and  her  honest 
problems  of  work?  It  is  easy  to  see  Canada's  answer 
to  the  newcome  Englishman  who  feels  that  he  ought 
to  have  first  chance  over  a  better  and  more  willing 
man.  It  is  the  answer  of  commonsense.  No  English- 
man should  flatter  himself  it  will  be  changed  for  him. 

In  western  Canada  there  is  work  for  five  times 
twenty-five  thousand  men;  in  eastern  Canada 
twenty-five  thousand  idle  men  walk  the  streets.  If 
matters  go  on  as  at  present,  that  latter  number  will 
quintuple  soon.  Thrifty  Canada,  where  for  two 
centuries  there  has  been  but  little  divergence  between 
the  extremes  of  wealth  and  poverty,  where  wealth 
has  not  come  so  easily,  so  suddenly,  as  in  the  States, 
is  amazed  at  this  unaccustomed  army  of  the  idle. 
Canada  has  above  all  things  been  industrious;  she 
has  not  been  accustomed  to  seeing  either  numbers  of 
very  rich  men,  or  numbers  of  very  idle  men.  The 
bread-line  has  been  almost  unknown  to  Canada. 

The  Governor-General  continues:  "I  believe  that 
there  is  an  abundance  of  capital  ready  to  come  in  to 
develop  the  resources  of  Canada,  if  only  the  necessary 
labor  can  be  obtained.  An  abundant  supply  of  cheap 
labor  would  also  appear  to  be  a  condition  precedent 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  GOVERNOR-GENERAL  131 
to  the  demand  for  highly-paid  labor,  such  as  that 
which  the  skilled  artisans  of  Toronto  can  supply; 
and  if  your  railways  awaiting  construction  are  to  be 
quickly  built,  and  your  lands  are  to  be  cleared  at  a  cost 
which  will  not  impose  an  unnecessarily  heavy  charge 
for  all  time  upon  yourselves  and  your  children,  this 
question  of  labor  is  one  which  calls  for  your  attention." 
The  latter  statement  would  seem  to  be  an  emin- 
ently safe  one,  yet  labor  is  idle  in  thousands!  What 
is  wrong  ? 

May  one  be  allowed  to  say  that  what  is  most 
wrong  is  the  whole  wrong  direction  of  life?  What  is 
wrong  is  the  gregarious  instinct  of  the  poor.  What 
is  wrong  is  the  old  gravitation  toward  grime  and 
crime,  the  instinct  of  herding  together.  Can  that 
instinct  be  overcome?  No,  it  cannot  and  will  not  be 
overcome  by  those  upon  whom  it  sits  the  hardest. 
This  is  the  problem  that  the  best  of  the  city  must 
meet,  the  best  thinkers,  the  best  men  of  affairs,  the 
best  governments.  It  never  will  be  solved  by  leaving 
it  to  general  abstractions;  or  by  leaving  it  to  the 
people  themselves. 

Already  the  cities  of  Canada  offer  in  little  the  vast 
problem  of  London.  But  if  a  part  of  that  energy 
which  annually  is  expended  in  re-establishing  London 


132  THE  SOWING 

in  Toronto  and  Montreal  were  put  forth  in  an  effort 
to  get  these  unemployed  men  out  of  Toronto  and 
Montreal,  and  into  the  Canadian  West — if  there  were 
intelligent  energy  spent  in  bringing  the  man  and  the 
job  together — then  there  would  be  such  westbound 
travel  as  would  tax  every  railway  of  the  Dominion ! 

This  is  all  true,  yet  it  seems  to  remain  to  be  dis- 
covered empirically.  In  the  larger  eastern  Canadian 
cities  small  societies  have  been  successful  for  years 
in  their  work  of  finding  country  homes  for  city 
children.  Other  societies  have  been  successful  in 
transporting  unemployed  men  to  small  Ontario  farms, 
where  they  are  supplied  each  with  a  suitable  house 
at  a  nominal  rent,  a  cow,  a  couple  of  pigs  and  poultry, 
where  credit  for  necessaries  is  guaranteed  at  a  local 
store,  and  where  the  head  of  the  family  may  find 
employment  in  the  lumber  camps  or  elsewhere  during 
the  months  when  he  may  leave  his  farm.  This  work 
has  been  at  least  moderately  successful.  The  larger 
work  of  getting  labor  in  to  western  Canada  ought  not 
to  be  more  difficult.  There  is  nothing  impossible 
about  it,  unless  it  be  impossible  for  Canada  to  be- 
come sufficiently  in  earnest  to  induce  England  to 
take  up  the  very  matter  on  which  the  Governor- 
General  of  Canada  declares  her  future  rests. 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  GOVERNOR-GENERAL  133 
There  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  truth  of  Earl  Grey's 
statement  that  Canada  needs  labor,  and  that  she  can 
get  all  the  capital  she  needs,  if  only  she  can  get  labor. 
The  actual  trouble  under  that  lies  in  the  fact  that 
your  English  laboring  man,  the  very  one  with  whom 
and  over  whom  we  are  so  much  concerned,  is  in  the 
course  of  the  years  becoming  unwilling  to  work.  Is 
that  not  the  truth  ?  If  it  is  true,  why  is  it  true  ?  The 
Governor-General  does  not  tell  us  why;  but  Canada 
one  day  must  tell  us  why. 

The  instinct  of  exercise  comes  to  any  strong 
creature.  Fitness  to  work  very  usually  accompanies 
willingness  to  work.  If  the  English  immigrant  is  not 
willing  to  work,  may  we  not  deduce  the  truth  that 
perhaps  he  is  not  fit  to  work?  May  we  not  go  further, 
and  say  that  perhaps  it  is  not  any  more  his  fault  than 
our  fault,  the  fault  of  the  city,  the  fault  of  a  wrong 
tendency  of  life,  that  he  is  not  fit  to  work? 

How  can  we  make  over  this  unfit  Englishman  into 
a  fit  laboring  man?  The  Governor-General  is  unfor- 
tunately, perhaps  discreetly,  mute  as  to  that. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

THE    VIEWPOINT    OP    A    STATESMAN. 

THERE  are,  then,  as  our  theme  shows,  three  flags 
entitled  to  our  attention  to-day.  One  is  the  flag  of 
Great  Britain,  respectable  for  what  it  is  and  what  it 
has  been;  another  is  the  flag  of  the  United  States, 
worth  regard,  let  a  "Yankee"  modestly  say,  at  least  for 
what  it  might  have  been;  the  last  is  the  flag  of 
Canada,  interesting  for  what  it  yet  may  be.  The 
phrasing  of  this  ought  to  warrant,  and  ought  in  turn 
to  bespeak,  a  cold  and  impartial  attitude  of  mind. 

From  the  standpoint  of  a  thinking  man,  the  author 
declines  to  render  reverence  to  his  own  country's 
mistakes  and  failures;  although  he  has  no  wish  to 
exchange  that  country  for  another,  is  not  compelled 
by  stress  of  poverty  or  paucity  of  opportunity  to 
leave  his  own  country,  nor  urged  by  any  business 
reason  to  care  more  for  another  than  for  his  own. 
With  equal  candor  he  submits  that  any  thinking 
man  ought  to  decline  reverence  for  the  flag  of  Great 

134 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  STATESMAN  135 

Britain  beyond  what  it  deserves  on  its  record  of  actual 
achievement.  Again,  as  to  the  assertion  that  the 
flag  of  Great  Britain  is  not  that  of  Canada,  one  needs 
point  only  to  the  debate  to-day  on  both  sides  of  the 
sea.  Within  the  last  few  years  the  flag  of  Canada 
has  been  changing  more  to  the  color  and  pattern  of 
that  of  the  United  States.  Ah,  but  let  us  look  at 
this  in  a  cold  and  impartial  attitude  of  mind!  Let 
us  examine  the  facts  and  not  deal  with  sentiment. 
It  is  logic,  and  not  loyalty  which  here  is  coldly  and 
impartially  demanded.  We  write  for  men,  not  children. 
The  only  hypothesis  we  need  is  that  flags  differ  with 
environments,  and  that  the  environments  of  Canada 
and  the  American  Republic  steadily  continue  more 
and  more  to  resemble  each  other.  That  this  latter  is 
true  is  due  to  act  of  Canada  herself — primarily  to  the 
act  of  one  of  Canada's  statesmen! 

The  facts  as  to  the  recent  discovery  of  farming 
Canada  are  too  unmistakable  to  leave  misconstruction 
possible.  These  facts  lie  in  the  dull  record  of  the 
Dominion  Parliament.  They  tell  a  story  of  change. 
That  change  was  brought  about  not  through  politics, 
after  all,  but  through  the  working  out  of  natural  laws. 
Until  we  can  dismiss  with  contempt  the  differences 
between  the  Conservative  and  the  Liberal,  between 


136  THE  SOWING 

the  British  flag  and  the  American  flag;  until  we  can 
go  into  these  matters  in  a  cold  and  impartial  attitude 
of  mind;  until  we  can  be  men,  and  not  children,  we 
are  not  fit  to  go  into  any  proper  study  of  colonization. 
Until  we  can  believe  that  Mr.  Clifford  Sifton  was 
consciously  or  unconsciously  something  bigger  than 
the  agent  of  a  political  party,  we  surely  are  not  fit  to 
go  into  the  matter  of  forecasting  futures. 

Suppose,  then,  we  undertake  to  conceive  of  Canada 
as  made  up  of  both  Liberals  and  Conservatives. 
Suppose  we  conceive  the  idea  that  a  nation  may  be 
guided  unconsciously  by  a  large  destiny,  which  is 
mostly  to  say  by  a  vast  commonsense.  Then  we  may 
call  Mr.  Sifton  the  unconscious  instrument  of  destiny, 
if  we  be  Conservative  and  hate  him;  or  the  adminis- 
trator of  a  good  policy,  if  we  be  Liberal  and  admire 
him. 

Of  course  it  is  known  that  the  rebirth  of  Canada 
West  began  about  1897,  and  at  a  time  when,  as  Minister 
of  the  Interior,  Mr.  Sifton  broadened  the  immigration 
policy  of  the  Dominion.  Before  that  time  the  United 
States  had  been  the  Mecca  of  European  and  Canadian 
emigration.  The  educated  young  man  of  Ontario 
did  not  go  to  Saskatchewan,  but  to  Boston,  New  York 
or  Chicago — in  numbers  amounting  to  very  many 


Clifford   Sifton 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  STATESMAN  137 

thousands.  The  western  Canadian  plains  remained 
barren  and  uncared  for.  Even  the  Minister  of  the 
Interior,  in  defending  his  policy  before  Parliament, 
had  to  admit  that  he  himself  had  reason  to  believe 
that  country  a  desert;  although  at  the  same  time, 
with  the  other  hand  so  to  speak,  he  could  point  out  the 
vast  discovery  that  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  the  land 
had  gone  in  value  from  one  dollar  to  ten  per  acre. 

Under  the  Sifton  ministry,  at  any  rate,  many 
changes  went  forward.  The  labors  of  the  Canadian 
High  Commissioner,  which  previously  had  been 
largely  diplomatic,  were  replaced  by  the  practical 
efforts  of  a  business  man,  a  national  "boomer"  so  to 
speak,  who  went  to  England  and  tried  to  make 
England  understand  what  western  Canada  was. 
The  Canadian  government  told  a  million  and  a  half 
men  in  England  what  Canada  was ;  and  by  means  of 
advertisement  and  literature  told  some  ten  million 
others  what  Canada  was. 

About  all  the  government  could  tell  then  was  that 
Canada  had  not  yet  solved  her  western  farming 
problems;  because  the  truth  at  that  time  was  that 
Canada  had  not  yet  patented  two  million  acres  in 
all ; — she  could  not  even  give  away  her  land  to  home- 
steaders! 


138  THE  SOWING 

Attention  was  turned  to  the  United  States,  where 
three  hundred  agencies  were  established,  and  a  wide 
campaign  of  advertising  undertaken,  estimated  to 
have  reached  millions  of  families.  Still  the  Americans 
would  not  come.  One  agent  worked  two  years,  and 
sent  one  solitary  family  across  the  line.  Up  to  1897 
only  701  persons  had  left  the  United  States  for 
Canada,  as  against  very  many  times  more  than  that 
number  of  Canadians  who  for  many  years  had  been 
going  to  the  United  States!  In  1897  about  20,000 
British  came  to  Canada.  In  the  current  year  about 
eight  times  that  many  British  have  been  received  by 
the  Dominion.  The  total  immigration  into  Canada 
in  seven  years  has  been  about  900,000 — not  as  much 
as  the  United  States  has  been  getting  each  year  for 
many  years  past ;  although  now  the  Republic  wishes 
it  had  not  quite  so  many  of  a  certain  sort. 

Canada,  thrifty  and  not  very  rich,  has  been 
keeping  house  in  a  small  apartment,  three  flights  up, 
her  menage  very  modest  but  very  free  from  care. 
Now  suddenly  heiress  to  fortune,  she  is  establishing 
herself  in  a  mansion  with  better  appointments,  more 
servants — and  more  problems.  With  her  new  splen- 
dors come  new  responsibilities.  Her  essays  at 
broadening  her  social  relations  meet  criticism,  call 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  STATESMAN  139 

up  recrimination,  invite  debate,  develop  even  acri- 
monious backbiting. 

Some  have  said  that  Canada  would  better  have 
stayed  in  her  modest  apartment  three  flights  up,  and 
blame  Mr.  Sifton  for  inviting  her  out  of  it.  These 
must  admit  that  from  1898  to  1903,  123,000  Ameri- 
cans came  over  into  Canada,  bringing  with  them 
forty -four  million  dollars  worth  of  effects.  There 
were  twenty-five  thousand  families  among  these,  and 
to  get  these  into  Canada  cost  only  $701,000.  None 
the  less,  there  have  not  lacked  those  who  said  that 
these  American  families  ought  to  have  been  left  at 
home.  These  are  the  folk  who  are  willing  to  talk 
politics,  but  unwilling  to  look  fate  in  the  face.  On 
both  sides  of  the  line  and  on  both  sides  of  the  sea 
there  should  be  modified  that  intolerance  of  reason 
which  is  unable  to  face  the  truth,  and  unable  to 
discount  the  future  by  admitting  what  that  truth  is 
sure  to  spell  in  future  years. 

So  far  as  any  threatening  changes  arising  through 
mixed  population  may  be  concerned,  Canada  has  no 
example  to  guide  her  but  that  of  her  sister  to  the 
south.  The  laws  of  our  American  Republic,  God 
knows,  are  bad  enough  and  badly  enough  enforced. 
Suppose  we  set  them  outside  the  discussion,  and 


140  THE  SOWING 

ask  what  the  laws  of  nature  have  done  for  the  Re- 
public. 

At  once  we  come  to  the  singular  fact  that  in  the 
American  Republic  there  are  all  sorts  of  persons  but 
Americans !  There  is  no  more  interesting  study  than 
that  of  a  population  map,  showing  the  different 
nationalities.  It  is  to  be  discovered  that  the  only 
American  part  of  America  is  a  thin  strip  of  country 
in  east  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  and  a  part  of 
Virginia.  The  rest  of  the  map  is  spotted  with  the 
foreign -born.  This  American  part  of  America  does 
not  emigrate  and  does  not  change  largely.  In 
American  cities  the  "American  vote"  is  a  jest,  it  is 
negligible.  In  a  recent  city  campaign  in  Milwaukee, 
Wisconsin,  the  candidates  for  city  offices  were: 
Messrs.  Meisenheimer,  Buchholz,  Lenicheck,  Abert, 
Altpeter,  Aswald,  Bogk,  Perthesius,  Pass,  Gerhardef , 
Stern,  Meyer,  Busacker,  Baudauff,  Ramien  and 
Runkel!  There  were  two  other  candidates,  Brand 
and  Bell,  but  in  deference  to  Milwaukee  sentiment,  it 
should  be  pointed  out  that  the  name  Brand  is  not 
English,  but  German! 

In  a  late  caucus  in  New  York  City  representation 
was  loudly  demanded  for  the  Irish,  the  German,  the 
Slav,  the  Italian,  the  Russian,  the  Austrian,  the 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  STATESMAN  141 

Hebrew,  the  Polish,  the  Greek,  the  Scandinavian 
and  the  French  vote.  A  meek  man  arose  and 
ventured  to  suggest  that  something  ought  to  be  done 
for  the  American  vote!  At  once  twelve  languages 
and  some  eighty  dialects  arose  with  the  indignant 

protest,  "Throw  the  d d,  ignorant,  Know-nothing 

tyrant  out  of  the  house!"  (There  was  once  a  brief - 
lived  political  party  in  the  United  States  whose  plat- 
form barred  all  foreign -born  from  holding  office,  and 
raised  the  cry,  "America  for  Americans!"  Few 
to-day  remember  even  the  name  of  that  party!) 

In  another  United  States  city  there  have  been 
arrested  for  murder,  according  to  the  press  reports, 
three  eminent  citizens  whose  names  are  Zajackowski, 
Marucik,  and  Szynczak.  One  does  not  know  the 
name  of  the  sheriff  who  arrested  them,  but  they  were 
escorted  before  Coroner  Frank  Luehring  by  detectives 
Schweitman,  Hildegard  and  Biersich.  If  you  wish 
more  foreign  names,  read  more  American  newspapers. 

There  is  no  wish  here  to  jest  at  names  or  nationali- 
ties; but  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  hesitation 
about  following  the  truth  wherever  it  may  lead.  It 
chances  to  lead,  through  unsupervised  immigration 
and  through  the  guidance  of  personal  greed,  directly 
to  the  extermination  of  the  American  race. 


142  THE  SOWING 

The  poorer  Europeans,  the  ones  that  can  starve 
best,  crowd  out  the  fuller-flowered  product  of  a  more 
easeful  civilization.  The  gnarled  plant  which  can 
starve  well  crowds  out  what  is  perhaps  a  more  beau- 
tiful one.  Race  suicide  in  America  is  a  condition. 
It  is  directly  due  to  no  one  thing  except  competition. 
The  poor  Europeans  work  more  cheaply  than  Ameri- 
cans. The  average  per  capita  income  in  America, 
including  millionaires,  is  about  $450  per  annum. 
That  is  the  status  of  the  average  American  citizen, 
including  all  his  acres.  Now,  a  native-born  American 
cannot  support  a  family  on  that  sum,  and  the  result  is, 
he  does  not  have  that  family  to  support.  The  cheap 
European  weed  is  killing  out  the  American  plant, 
just  as  the  English  or  German  sparrow  is  killing  out 
the  American  song  birds ;  just  as  the  German  carp  is 
killing  out  American  fishes.  In  each  case  it  is  the 
result  of  natural  laws.  As  the  writer  never  has  been 
obliged  to  make  a  living  in  any  political  calling,  he 
may  afford  to  speak  the  truth  regarding  such  matters 
— something  which  few  politicians  and  few  publishers 
have  cared  to  do. 

Now  then,  the  cheaper  European  is  starving  out 
the  Descendants  of  the  vigorous  Scotch-Irish,  of  the 
old  men  of  the  Palatinate,  of  some  of  the  German 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  STATESMAN  143 

States,  who  made  the  hardiest  of  the  early  American 
frontier  stock.  The  Republic  owes  less  to  England 
than  to  Scotland  and  Ireland.  Why?  Because  the 
environment  of  Scotland  and  Ireland  was  that  of 
survival,  of  struggle.  They  did  not  have  cities. 

The  Republic,  in  these  new  days  of  unrestricted 
immigration,  proceeds  to  prove  these  things  all  over 
again.  Her  cities  are  as  those  of  England.  She 
finds  few  great  men  there,  still  fewer  second-genera- 
tion great  men.  In  all  her  history  America  has  found 
her  greatest  men  in  the  small  community  or  in  the 
country,  and  many  of  her  greatest  men  have  come 
from  the  West;  that  is  to  say,  environment  produced 
the  creature. 

Now,  environment  does  not  stop  at  imaginary 
lines  between  nations.  Mr.  Sifton,  for  instance,  was 
not  produced  by  the  Liberal  party,  not  produced 
by  Canada;  he  was  produced  by  an  environ- 
ment. Perhaps  we  may  go  so  far  now  as  to 
see  more  easily  that  flags  also  follow  environments; 
and  that,  whether  or  not  one  flag  always  shall  float 
over  Great  Britain  and  Canada,  the  latter  country 
must  eventually  conform  to  the  terms  of  the  environment 
of  the  American  continent.  This  will  happen,  whether 


144  THE  SOWING 

or  not  we  like  it,  and  whether  or  not  we  foresee  it 

coldly  and  impartially. 

The  garments  of  the  great  Republic  are  divided 
now  among  the  peoples  of  the  Old  World.  Without 
doubt  she  has  suffered  a  certain  racial  deterioration; 
without  doubt,  had  her  population  been  left  more 
fully  to  take  advantage  of  the  splendid  human  en- 
vironment, Republican  America  would  in  time  have 
produced  an  art,  a  literature,  a  civilization,  a  philan- 
thropy, a  scheme  of  government  which  would  have 
done  something  for  the  human  being ;  which  is  to  say 
for  the  world.  Shall  Canada  repeat  this  sort  of 
history  ? 

The  speech  of  the  Hon.  Clifford  Sifton  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  May  31,  1906,  in  defense  of  his 
immigration  policy  when  Minister  of  the  Interior, 
was,  in  spite  of  its  political  color,  one  of  the  most 
thoughtful  and  most  thought-provoking  speeches 
ever  made  in  any  house  of  government  on  the  Ameri- 
can continent.  Its  tone  is  as  firmly  against  British 
arrogance  and  intolerance  as  was  the  speech  of  Patrick 
Henry  in  the  Old  Virginia  of  another  century!  It 
carries  the  same  insistence  that  humanity  must 
advance ;  and  that  the  average  man,  not  the  privileged 
few,  must  rule  the  deeds  of  the  world.  Wittingly  or 


The  .North  American  Type 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  STATESMAN  145 

unwittingly,  Clifford  Sifton  and  Patrick  Henry  argued 
shoulder  to  shoulder;  consciously  or  unconsciously, 
they  spoke  for  the  extension  of  human  opportunity; 
although  the  one  argued  war,  the  other  peace.  Speed 
the  day  when  England  coldly  and  impartially  can 
admire  them  both! 

For  ten  years  a  certain  railway  in  western  Canada 
had  run  two  trains  a  week  across  a  region  which,  in 
joint  Canadian  belief,  was  a  desert.  Certain  men 
asked  this  railroad  for  a  chance  to  do  business  in  that 
country,  but  the  railroad  replied  that  it  would  not 
even  establish  a  station  unless  these  business  men 
would  pay  the  salary  of  an  agent!  One  hundred  and 
twenty-three  thousand  settlers  were  asking  trans- 
portation. The  railroad  had  not  even  a  station  agent 
to  take  their  money!  One  recalls  the  funeral  of  the 
lazy  man  who  on  his  way  to  the  grave  was  offered  a 
quantity  of  corn  if  he  cared  for  it.  "Is  the  corn 
shelled?"  he  asked,  as  he  sat  up  in  his  coffin.  He  was 
informed  that  he  was  expected  to  shell  his  own  corn. 
"Then  let  the  funeral  go  on!"  he  replied  wearily,  and 
so  lay  down  again  in  his  coffin  and  let  it  go  on.  This 
funeral  went  on  for  a  time.  But  we  do  not  railroad 
in  that  way  now. 

The  men  who  paid  the  salary  of  the  new  station 


146  THE  SOWING 

agent,  who  put  up  a  new  hotel  and  boarded  thousands 
of  intending  settlers  free,  were  the  men  of  the  syndi- 
cate who  came  to  the  Minister  of  the  Interior  and 
offered  a  dollar  an  acre  for  two  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  acres  of  land  direct  from  the  government — 
not  mentioning  several  hundreds  of  thousand  acres 
which  they  purposed  buying  from  railroads.  Under 
the  Sifton  administration  this  land  was  sold,  with  the 
restriction  that  in  each  township  of  it  twenty  home- 
steaders and  twelve  buyers  of  land  should  be  estab- 
lished ;  a  bond  of  fifty  thousand  dollars  being  required 
by  the  government  for  the  performance  of  the  con- 
dition. The  financial  figures,  it  may  be  seen,  would 
to-day  be  called  in  the  picayune  class;  yet  that  was 
one  of  the  great  transactions  of  history,  and  there  was 
fought  one  of  the  decisive  battles  of  the  world,  when 
this  American  syndicate  persuaded  the  old  railway 
company  to  allow  them  to  pay  the  station  agent's 
salary!  This  battle  was  nothing  but  the  triumph  of 
the  truth,  that  in  these  days  men  ere  long  must  begin 
to  get  back  to  the  land. 

For  these  syndicate  workers,  fresh  from  labors 
of  a  similar  nature  in  the  United  States,  that  was 
simple  which  for  Canada  had  been  difficult.  What 
they  did  is  very  recent  history.  Indeed  you  may  find 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  STATESMAN  147 

in  files  of  Winnipeg  journals,  of  no  ancient  date, 
criticism  of  the  government  for  allowing  these  hun- 
dreds of  American  immigrants  thus  to  be  "buncoed!" 
To-day,  on  the  other  hand,  the  government  is 
criticized  for  "buncoing"  Canada  by  letting  in  so  many 
"Yankees"  to  compete  with  the  Englishmen!  They 
do  compete,  and  they  will  compete.  We  do  not  need 
contemplate  the  annexation  of  Canada  to  the 
United  States,  for  that  can  not  now  conceivably  be; 
but  we  can  easily  enough  see  the  annexation  of  both 
Canada  and  the  United  States  to  the  flag  of  destiny. 
We  can  see  the  ghost  of  Patrick  Henry  standing  at 
the  shoulder  of  Clifford  Sifton,  arguing  for  the  exten- 
sion of  human  opportunity ;  and  arguing  with  insist- 
ence that  that  opportunity  shall  be  equal  for  all. 
Speed  the  day  when  England  coldly  and  impartially 
can  admire  them  both! 

We  may  find  profit  in  going  over  this  proposition 
for  sake  of  fairness.  In  1896,  from  the  Dakotas  to 
Edmonton,  and  from  Manitoba  to  the  Rockies,  there 
lay  locked  up  in  railway  reserves  forty  million  acres 
of  land,  to  be  earned  through  future  compliance  of 
the  railways  with  their  building  grants.  We  have 
seen  how  much  enterprise  one  minor  railway  showed 
when  it  refused  to  put  in  a  station  in  what  was  called 


148  THE  SOWING 

the  "Saskatchewan  desert" — now  one  of  the  richest 
portions  of  the  Dominion!  In  1896  the  Canadian 
Pacific  Railway  passed  its  dividends,  and  its  stock 
went  down  to  fifty.  Look  at  the  quotations  now. 
By  the  difference  you  may  measure  what  has  gone 
forward  in  little  more  than  a  decade. 

Before  1896  Canada  had  not  patented  two  million 
acres  of  land.  Since  then  she  has  patented  twenty- 
two  and  a  half  millions  of  acres.  In  his  speech  of 
March  20,  1908,  Mr.  Sifton  addressed  a  world  different 
from  that  which  listened  to  him  two  years  earlier- 
He  said:  "  I  think  I  need  not  apologize  to  this  House 
for  directing  attention  to  western  affairs,  because  I 
think  we  have  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  the 
prosperity  of  the  whole  of  Canada  depends  very 
largely  upon  the  prosperity  of  that  section.  .  .  . 
I  think  there  is  nobody  who  is  familiar  with  the  facts 
of  the  case  that  will  say  there  is  any  doubt  that  the 
immigrants  we  have  received  from  the  western  States 
have  been  in  almost  every  case  of  the  most  unexcep- 
tional character,  and  have  contributed  very  greatly 
to  the  development  of  our  western  country.  I  do 
not  think  any  country  could  possibly  get  a  better 
class  of  settlers  than  the  western  American  settlers 
who  have  come  here  to  our  western  provinces.  They 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  STATESMAN  149 

are  vigorous,  resourceful,  law-abiding.  They  become 
citizens  the  day  they  arrive  in  the  country,  and  at  the 
earliest  possible  moment  they  become  producers." 

As  yet  greater  earnest  of  his  belief  in  western 
Canada  and  its  development,  the  same  speaker  went 
on  to  ask  for  the  throwing  open  to  homesteaders  of 
thirty  million  acres  more  of  land.  He  said:  "I  am 
satisfied  that  the  result  of  throwing  these  lands  open 
for  homestead  entry  would  be  at  once  to  double  the 
stream  of  immigration  from  the  United  States,  and 
I  venture  the  suggestion  that  if  it  were  done,  we 
should  not  hear,  after  six  months  from  the  opening  of 
these  lands  for  entry,  any  more  about  dull  times  or 
lack  of  confidence  in  that  western  country." 

The  opinion  of  this  statesman  of  western  Canada 
therefore  admits  of  no  doubt.  He  believes  in  inviting 
the  immigration  of  the  fit,  the  strong,  those  for  whom 
success  in  a  new  country  practically  is  fore-assured- 
This  is  the  policy  which  has  established  Canada  in 
her  fine  new  house,  with  new  furniture,  new  servants, 
a  better  average  daily  table.  But  what  of  the  guests 
that  now  come  to  this  wider  door?  Here  are  those  who 
did  not  find  the  door  of  the  dingy  apartment  three 
flights  up,  where  Canada  lately  lived.  What  of  this 
stream  of  visitors  from  the  cities  of  the  Old  World, 


150  THE  SOWING 

coming  to  compete  with  the  hardest  competition 
that  could  be  devised  for  them?  It  is  right  for 
Canada  that  this  competition  should  be  hard,  folly 
for  it  to  be  otherwise.  It  is  right  for  the  policy  of 
the  government  to  have  waiting  for  these  weak,  these 
others,  strong,  fit,  hardy,  experienced,  able  to  push 
all  weak  men  back  from  the  coveted  success.  These 
sturdy  western  settlers  will,  if  left  alone,  at  once 
take  the  measure  of  all  new-come  slum  dwellers;  if 
left  alone,  they  will  enforce  the  laws  of  nature,  until 
in  time  they,  having  built  up  the  flowering  of  a 
splendid  civilization,  will  in  turn  be  forced  to  give 
room  to  some  sort  of  human  plant  which  can  stand 
starving  better  than  themselves. 

Now,  can  we  begin  to  see  some  justice  in  even  the 
most  unwelcome  of  these  statements  heading  our 
chapter?  Can  we  see  soberness  on  the  face  of  the 
owner  of  Canada's  new  mansion  house?  Ah,  behold 
Canada's  poor  relations  flocking  to  visit  her  in  her 
new  house!  Here  come  Canada's  country  cousins 
from  the  Old  World  cities!  What  shall  she  do  with 
so  many  of  the  very  poor,  the  products  of  bad  human 
environment,  men  who  are  not  fit  to  make  their 
living?  Canada  suggests  they  go  out  into  the  garden 
and  set  to  work;  but  the  bread  line  in  Toronto  last 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  STATESMAN  151 

winter  shows  that  many  of  these  poor  cousins  either 
could  not  or  would  not  work.  She  asks  them  to  go  to 
the  woodpile  and  saw  wood  to  earn  a  meal;  they 
reply  by  saying  that  they  do  not  know  how  to  saw 
or  split  wood.  Thank  God,  Canada  has  plenty  of  snow 
to  shovel!  Thank  God,  she  still  has  railroads  building. 
to  offer  labor  opportunity!  But  some  time  all  the 
railroads  will  be  built.  Who  will  own  them?  The  men 
who  can  do  nothing  but  shovel  snow?  Perhaps  not. 
It  is  the  problem  of  government  to  get  these  poor 
relations  out  into  the  garden  at  work,  where  they  can 
raise  something.  But  we  have  seen  that  thus  far 
government,  plus  charity,  plus  politics,  plus  race 
prejudice,  plus  all  animosities  and  narrowness,  has  not 
been  able  to  devise  any  plan  better  than  the  old  one 
of  letting  the  strong  survive.  What  is  going  to  be  the 
result  of  that,  if  it  be  not  modified?  The  poor  rela- 
tions will  shovel  snow;  but  gradually  the  outline 
and  the  color  of  Canada's  flag  will  change.  She  asks 
that,  and  invites  that.  But  what  shall  she  do  for 
these  poor?  That  problem  is  now  far  bigger  than  the 
one  ten  years  ago,  of  settling  the  supposed  western 
desert.  The  latter  problem  was  cared  for  on  business 
lines  minus  human  kindness.  The  newer  one  can  only 
find  settlement  by  business  plus  human  kindness. 


152  THE  SOWING 

Shall  Canada  keep  her  new  house  in  the  old 
American  way,  in  the  old  English  way?  The  poor  of 
all  the  nations  of  the  world  are  waiting  for  her  answer. 
The  armies  of  Socialism  on  both  sides  the  sea,  in 
every  nation  of  the  world,  wait  for  her  answer.  The 
revolutionists  of  the  world,  one  side  or  other  of  the 
sea,  wait  for  her  answer. 

Canada,  in  her  new  house,  must  frame  some 
answer  founded  on  business  and  on  human  kindness 
both,  not  on  business  alone.  Her  cousins  are  throng- 
ing up  the  walk,  idle  cousins,  weak  and  unfit  cousins, 
lazy  cousins,  bigoted  cousins;  and,  worst  of  all,  so 
very  many  honest  cousins  who  have  never  yet  in  all 
the  world  had  a  decent  man's  chance  to  do  something 
for  himself  and  for  his  family. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

THE    VIEWPOINT    OF    A    GOVERNMENT    MINISTER. 

IN  ONE  of  his  poems,  Victor  Hugo  pictures  the 
Satyr  of  Mount  Olympus  rising  before  the  assembly 
of  the  gods.  When  they  revile  him,  he  answers  with 
defiance.  At  last  he  takes  from  them  their  instru- 
ments of  music,  and  plays  before  them.  Spaciousness 
comes  into  his  form.  The  immensity  of  the  worlds 
arises  in  his  being.  He  overthrows  the  throne  of 
Jupiter. 

A  Socialist  writer  asks:  "Now,  is  not  Socialism 
this  Satyr?  Feeble,  like  him,  at  first,  hairy,  despised, 
behold  him  growing.  He  seizes  the  flute  of  Mercury. 
He  grasps  Apollo's  lyre.  He  rises  before  those  who 
count  themselves  immortal,  and  soon,  his  foot  upon 
the  throne,  he,  in  the  fullness  of  his  power,  cries  out, 
'All  must  give  way.  I  am  Pan!'  " 

We  need  not  agree  with  all  the  conclusions  of 
Socialism,  but  we  may  all  agree  that  Socialism  is  the 

153 


154  THE  SOWING 

spectre  of  Europe  to-day ;  that  in  time  it  will  come  to 

be  the  spectre  of  this  New  World.     Why? 

There  are  two  answers.  The  first  lies  in  our  own 
industrial  misdeeds.  The  second  bases  itself  on  the 
great  truth  that  the  message  of  the  earth  finds  no 
voice  hi  the  estates  of  any  aristocracy  or  the  wealth  of 
any  millionaire.  The  purpose  of  the  world  was  to 
develop  mankind.  Let  us  not  revile  this  Satyr.  He 
may  grow  too  large  for  us  one  day.  Let  us  not  be 
Socialists,  but  let  us  none  the  less  subscribe  to  the 
doctrine  that  some  Socialism  and  some  Religion  and 
some  Philanthropy  have  very  much  the  same  common 
denominator. 

It  was  the  Honorable  Frank  Oliver,  Minister  of  the 
Interior  for  the  Dominion  Government,  who  declared 
that,  all  theories  and  problems  aside,  "the  main 
purpose  of  any  government  ought  to  be  to  do  good 
for  the  world."  No  one  who  knows  the  Minister  of 
the  Interior  would  venture  to  ascribe  to  him  any 
Socialistic  leanings.  It  is  the  function  of  any 
government  official  to  act  as  a  pillar  for  society  as  we 
now  know  it.  But  that  there  is  a  grave  question 
remaining  unsettled  even  in  government  circles,  may 
be  proved  out  of  the  mouth  of  the  Minister  of  the 
Interior  himself. 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  GOVERNMENT  MINISTER  155 
One  high  in  power  may  be  kind  of  heart  as  well  as 
wise  of  head.  He  must  be  ambitious  for  his  own 
country's  future;  yet  he  cannot  put  aside  his  convic- 
tion that  the  purpose  of  that  country  ought  to  be 
to  do  good  for  the  world.  Here  then  is  our  problem. 
It  is  the  conflict  of  the  soft  heart  and  the  hard  head. 
How  can  these  two  be  reconciled? 

As  to  the  hardheadedness  of  the  Minister  of  the 
Interior,  there  is  no  room  for  argument.  His  quality 
as  one  fit  to  survive  is  evidenced  in  his  life's  story. 
He  came  from  the  Canadian  West  by  route  of  his  own 
making.  He  lived  the  hard  life  of  the  prairies,  and 
the  conditions  of  that  life  offered  him  no  fanciful 
theories.  He  knows  his  facts  when  he  states  any 
opinion  as  to  policies  concerning  western  Canada. 
He  has  had  very  much  to  do  with  opening  up  the  new 
lands  of  western  Canada;  and  never  in  his  own 
country  or  in  the  republic  to  the  south  of  Canada 
has  he  hesitated  to  express  his  belief  as  to  the  proper 
sort  of  citizenship,  if  the  welfare  of  Canada  is  to  be 
considered.  He  openly  has  encouraged  the  immigration 
of  American  farmers,  because  he  has  attached 
practical  value  to  the  demonstration  they  make  of 
western  Canada's  possibilities.  He  has  set  the 
Davidson  type  of  practical  farmer  as  the  measure  of 


156  THE  SOWING 

the  citizen  desired  for  Canada.  A  product  of  the 
West  himself,  master  of  many  stages  in  a  western 
career,  he  knows  what  a  man  out  there  must  be  if  he 
is  to  win.  He  knows  that  it  is  not  the  weakling  who 
will  win,  and  he  has  openly  declared  that  what  he 
wants  is  the  best  and  strongest  farmers  of  the  world 
to  come  out  and  actually  to  farm.  He  has  been 
against  assisted  city  immigration.  What  he  would 
like  as  an  individual  is  of  no  consequence.  What  he 
would  prefer  as  an  officer  of  the  government  admits 
of  no  doubt. 

For  our  present  purpose,  it  will  serve  to  take  up 
the  known  preferences  of  the  Minister  of  the  Interior. 
Even  a  less  shrewd  and  able  man  than  he  could  not 
have  failed  to  see  the  evils  of  massed  shipments  of 
incompetents.  Many  of  these  assisted  poor  have 
turned  out  well,  have  secured  work  in  Canada,  and 
now  can  look  forward  to  a  life  of  comparative  com- 
fort. But  for  all  that,  the  government  of  the 
Dominion  is  sternly  set  on  the  proposition  that  the 
function  of  Canada  in  the  world  is  not  to  furnish 
wholesale  solution  of  London's  problem  of  the 
unemployed  poor. 

The  Oliver  theory  is  that  of  the  success  of  the 
strong  and  self-reliant.  It  is  that  sort  of  success 


* 


Frank   Oliver 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  GOVERNMENT  MINISTER  157 
which  he  himself  embodies.  How,  then,  as  an  official 
of  Canada  could  he  approve  plans  whose  aim  and 
object  is  the  selection  of  the  most  unfit  citizenship  for 
Canada?  Has  hasty  philanthropy  ever  stopped  to 
ponder  on  the  extreme  accuracy  of  such  a  statement 
as  the  foregoing?  Has  it  stopped  to  reflect  on  the 
time  and  money  which  have  been  spent  in  selecting  for 
Canada  the  very  choicest  specimens  of  undesirables  ? 

No  attempt  is  made  to  assist  the  emigration  of  the 
man  who  is  in  work,  no  matter  how  fit  he  may  be  for 
Canada,  no  matter  how  ambitious  and  efficient. 
That  is  the  very  man  Canada  ought  to  have;  but 
unless  he  comes  of  his  own  initiative,  he  does  not  come 
at  all.  It  is  only  a  man  who  is  out  of  work  who  be- 
comes an  object  of  solicitude  to  the  emigration 
societies.  But  what  threw  him  out  of  work?  In  all 
likelihood  he  is  out  of  work  because  he  is  weak, 
inefficient  or  intemperate.  These  are  qualifications 
for  dismissal  from  employment  in  England.  They 
are  alike  qualifications  for  dismissal  from  the  citizen- 
ship of  Canada. 

Yet  it  is  precisely  from  that  class  that  Canada  is 
offered  her  citizenship ;  and  requested  to  take  it, 
whether  or  not  she  likes  it,  because  it  is  for  the  good 
of  England! 


158  THE  SOWING 

Under  the  former  immigration  law,  little  super- 
vision was  possible  for  Canada  over  this  collection 
work  in  England.  That  work  was  carried  on  by  men 
who  had  no  interests  at  stake,  and  who  in  many  in- 
stances had  had  no  experience  in  estimating  the 
interests  of  others.  Their  labors  were  confined  to  the 
field  of  the  unfit.  Canada  was  calling  all  the  time  for 
good  farmer  material  to  come  out  and  help  her.  She 
got  her  answer  in  thousands  who  never  saw  a  farm. 
What  would  a  practical  man  from  the  western  plains 
of  Canada  feel  in  regard  to  this — knowing  as  he  must 
the  stern  requirements  of  life  in  the  west,  knowing  also 
the  danger  of  the  de-Britishizing  of  western  Canada  ? 
He  cannot  consult  the  softness  of  his  heart.  Out  of 
the  hardness  of  his  head  he  must  say  that  Canada  may 
not  be  used  as  British  dumping  ground  merely  for 
the  sake  of  calling  it  British. 

How  then  can  Canada  do  the  greatest  good  to  the 
world?  Ah,  now  we  begin  to  close  in  upon  our  little 
question,  to  drive  it  into  a  corner!  Thus  far  we  have 
done  little  more  than  see  how  high  are  the  walls  which 
fence  it  in,  how  inexorable  are  its  delimitations.  One 
function  of  an  author  is  to  collect  facts,  viewpoints, 
theories;  to  report  many  different  men  fairly  and 
intelligently  as  he  may.  We  have  undertaken  to  do 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  A  GOVERNMENT  MINISTER  159 
that  here.  Perhaps  thus  we  may  gain  additional 
validity  for  any  conclusion  which  later  may  be 
ventured.  We  shall  see  before  we  close  that  the 
utterances  of  the  Minister  of  the  Interior  are  not  in 
the  least  cryptic, nor  his  position  irreconcilable  either 
with  good  philanthropy  or  good  business.  Let  us 
therefore  hope  to  be  able  to  devise  some  plan  by 
which  Canada  can  do  the  most  good  for  Canada,  and 
yet  do  the  most  good  for  the  world. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

THE    VIEWPOINT    OF    AN    ENGLISH    EMISSARY. 

IN  THE  summer  of  1908,  Earl  Stanhope,  member 
of  one  of  the  old  families  of  England,  journeyed  into 
Canada  to  investigate  fully  the  question  of  Canadian 
immigration,,  and  to  report  his  conclusions  to  the 
House  of  Lords,  of  which  he  is  a  distinguished  mem- 
ber. Earl  Stanhope  made  this  journey,  for  this 
purpose ;  and  he  brought  to  his  work,  in  an  unusual 
degree,  a  sense  of  responsibility,  a  feeling  of  the 
importance  of  the  matter  in  hand,  and  a  clear-sighted 
intelligence  in  considering  that  matter.  He  remained 
in  western  Canada  until  the  fall  of  1908. 

By  good  fortune,  there  was  obtained  from  him 
before  his  departure — at  a  date  long  subsequent  to 
the  beginning  of  this  work  in  serial  form — a  prelimin- 
ary statement  of  some  of  his  conclusions,  reached 
after  conscientious  investigation  at  first  hand.  T,hese 
are  offered  herein  with  his  full  consent.  In  reviewing 
his  communication,  which  follows,  the  author,  con- 

160 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  AN  ENGLISH  EMISSARY  161 
fessedly  a  "Yankee,"  feels  a  satisfaction  bordering 
almost  upon  a  personal  pleasure;  because  Earl  Stan- 
hope, an  intelligent  Englishman,  separately  and 
independently  arrives  upon  practically  the  same 
conclusions  as  those  reached  as  a  sheer  matter  of  logic 
by  the  author  in  the  later  pages  of  this  book.  Even 
did  the  conclusions  of  the  author  seem  weakened  by 
forestalling  them  in  this  way,  none  the  less  he  would 
be  constrained  to  print  Earl  Stanhope's  conclusions 
here,  where  they  belong;  because  they  show  the 
earnestness  with  which  all  thinkers  on  both  sides  of 
the  water  are  approaching  one  of  the  greatest  and 
most  vital  questions  of  the  time,  and  they  offer  the 
one  definite  and  decisive  line  of  thought  which  we 
have  discovered  in  all  the  conscientious  attempts  to 
solve  this  question.  The  communication  follows: 

"This  problem  is  one  of  the  greatest  and  most 
pressing  of  our  time.  It  is  said  that  we  ascribe 
successes  to  ourselves,  whereas  the  truth  really  is 
that  'we  found  opportunity,  we  did  not  create  it'. 
True — but  to  many  of  us  the  opportunity  has  oc- 
curred; it  is  only  the  few  who  have  grasped  it. 
"Back  to  the  Land"  may  be  the  answer  to  the 
squalor  of  the  cities,  but  if  we  study  the  question  a 
little  more  closely  in  England,  I  fear  it  would  be 


162  THE  SOWING 

found  that  in  many  cases  "Back  to  the  Land"  is 
little  more  than  a  platform  cry.  The  man  who  has 
tasted  the  sweets  of  city  life — granted  that  these 
sweets  are  more  largely  composed  of  chalk  than  sugar 
— will  not  readily  exchange  them  for  the  dull  mono- 
tony and  weary  toil  of  the  agricultural  laborer.  He 
is,  however,  quite  prepared  to  let  the  man  in  the  city 
go  back  to  country  life  and  so  give  him  the  oppor- 
tunity of  taking  his  place  in  the  city. 

"It  is  said  that  England  expects  Canada  to 
receive  her  poor  in  return  for  what  the  Old  Country 
may  have  done  for  the  Dominion.  England  expects 
nothing  of  the  sort.  But  she  does  expect  Canadians 
to  live  up  to  the  highest  traditions  of  the  British 
race — to  make  some  self-sacrifice  if  need  be  for  the 
good  of  mankind  and  the  welfare  of  their  own  kith 
and  kin  throughout  the  empire.  Who  shall  say  that 
her  confidence  is  misplaced?  Can  England  so  soon 
forget  how  Canada's  sons  rallied  to  the  cry  of  their 
brothers  in  South  Africa  ? 

"But  England  may  have  forgotten — perhaps  it 
requires  a  visit  to  that  wonderful  country,  so  hard  to 
realize  till  it  has  been  seen,  to  bring  home  in  full  force 
— the  fact  that  no  nation  can  be  called  on  to  receive 
a  population  beyond  what  it  readily  can  assimilate. 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  AN  ENGLISH  EMISSARY  163 
Assuredly  the  people  from  great  cities  and  old 
countries  are  not  such  as,  without  considerable 
training,  any  new  country  would  wish  to  receive  as 
the  progenitors  of  its  stock,  the  makers  of  a  nation's 
future. 

"The  problem  then  resolves  itself  to  this:  Can 
these  dwellers  of  the  great  cities  be  made  such  as 
Canada  could  willingly  accept,  and  if  so,  how?  How 
shall  we  present  to  every  man  the  opportunity  so  that 
the  many  shall  receive,  the  few  reject? 

"We  may  dismiss  from  our  minds  the  rural 
population  of  England,  proportionately  small  in 
numbers  and  for  the  most  part  contented  with  their 
lot,  who  would  not  be  prepared  to  exchange  a  com- 
fortable home,  a  regular  wage  provision  in  sickness 
from  club  and  generous  employer,  and  compensation 
in  case  of  accident,  for  the  lottery  (as  it  appears  to 
them)  of  life  in  an  unknown  land. 

"How  then  can  we  train  the  city  dweller?  It 
has  been  suggested  that  he  first  be  trained  on  the 
land  in  England  and  then  brought  over  to  Canada. 
But,  surely,  with  a  town  within  at  most  a  long  day's 
walk,  the  old  environment  would  hang  too  close 
about  him,  and  like  the  moth  to  the  candle  he  would 
assuredly  drift  back  to  the  old  life  and  appeals  to 


164  THE  SOWING 

misplaced  charity.  Moreover,  much  that  he  would 
learn  of  agriculture  in  England  would  be  worse  than 
useless  to  him  out  in  Canada. 

"Would  not  a  readier  solution  be  found  by  plant- 
ing the  emigrant  in  the  first  place  down  in  Canada  in 
labor  colonies  possibly  under  home  government  man- 
agement for,  say,  two  years?  Then,  if  at  the  end  of 
his  term  of  training  he  satisfied  the  Canadian  Inspec- 
tor of  his  fittingness  to  become  a  settler,  that  he 
should  be  given  a  quarter  section  of  land  reserved 
for  him  out  of  a  township  already  fairly  peopled  with 
old  settlers?  If,  on  the  other  hand,  he  failed  to  come 
up  to  requirements,  that  he  should  either  be  given  a 
further  term  of  training  or  transshipped  back 
to  England  by  the  troopship  which,  at  certain 
seasons  of  the  year,  could  be  utilized  to  bring  him 
out? 

"It  is  possible  that  some  legislation  would  be 
necessary,  imposing  a  small  mortgage  on  the  settler's 
holding  to  cover  part  of  the  cost  of  his  training  and 
the  first  equipment  of  his  farm,  and  that  some  law 
should  be  enacted  forbidding  him  to  leave  the  labor 
colony  till  he  had  been  approved  by  the  Canadian 
Inspector  and  had  paid  the  cost  of  his  trans-shipment 
and  training.  These,  however,  are  details  which 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  AN  ENGLISH  EMISSARY  165 
should  not  present  a  problem  impossible  of  solution 
between  the  two  governments." 

The  conclusion  seems  not  merely  plausible,  but 
wholly  inevitable.  It  is  not  a  question  of  how  some- 
thing may  be  done,  but  whether  it  must  be  done. 
It  is  not  a  question  of  the  expense;  the  expense 
is  one  that  must  be  undergone.  The  evasion  of 
logic  to-day  is  an  expensive  matter,  because  time 
travels  fast  to-day,  and  nations  do  not  wait,  and 
destinies  will  not  be  handicapped. 

Without  referring  here  to  the  conclusions  of  our 
own  later  pages,  let  us  total  up  the  conclusions  of 
this  member  of  the  English  House  of  Lords. 

First ;  he  agrees  that  there  is  material  for  Canadian 
citizenship  in  the  cities. 

Second ;  he  concludes  that  preparation  for  Canada 
must  be  made  in  Canada  itself. 

Third,  he  concludes  that  the  intending  settler 
should  pass  an  examination  in  settlership,  after  full 
opportunity,  on  the  actual  land,  to  qualify. 

Fourth;  these  are  government  matters  incapable 
of  handling  by  private  enterprise  alone. 

Fifth;  such  an  enterprise  is  capable  of  financing 
and  is  capable  of  repayment  out  of  the  soil  itself,  plus 
the  energy  of  the  settler  growing  with  the  soil.  We  do 


166  THE  SOWING 

not  believe  that  the  House  of  Lords  will  get  much 
beyond  this ;  or  that  England  will ;  or  that  Canada  will. 
In  early  Virginian  days,  England  sent  to  this 
country  many  "indentured"  men,  who  came  here 
with  a  stigma  already  attached  to  them.  Earl  Stan- 
hope's suggestion  that  there  should  be  some  sort  of 
restraint  imposed  upon  settlers,  some  sort  of  a  "labor 
colony,"  which  could  not  be  entered  or  which  could 
not  be  left  at  free  will  by  any  settler,  is  one  which  is 
perhaps  better  dismissed  as  something  to  be  taken 
up  in  later  detail  between  the  two  governments. 
The  suggestion  does  not  yet  appeal  to  a  resident  on 
this  continent,  and  the  detail  is  bound  to  prove  one 
of  difficulty.  We  of  the  United  States  have  had  no 
such  restrictions,  no  such  paternalism,  because  ours 
was  an  earlier  and  a  different  day.  In  the  wholly 
different  conditions  in  Canada  some  such  colony  will 
without  doubt  come  into  existence,  but  even  there 
resentment  at  that  phrase  quickly  will  be  learned. 
Perhaps  we  can  mitigate  its  unpleasantness  somewhat 
even  in  its  name.  "Labor  colony"  does  not  sound 
well  as  a  name  in  western  Canada,  where  all  men 
want  to  be  free,  and  where  so  very  soon — given  any 
sort  of  decent  chance — they  all  do  learn  to  be  free 
and  self-respecting. 


THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  AN  ENGLISH  EMISSARY  167 
But,  in  one  way  or  another,  under  one  name  or 
another,  we  shall  one  day  see  more  than  one  farm 
colony  established  in  Canada,  and  engaged  in  pro- 
ducing, not  at  once  No.  1  hard  wheat,  but  from  the 
first  No.  1  good  citizens.  It  is  not  Earl  Stanhope's 
loyalty  which  leads  him  to  believe  this.  It  is  not  his 
pocketbook  which  invites  him  to  believe  it.  It  is 
not  his  sentiment  which  asks  him  to  believe  it.  It  is 
his  logic,  which  compels  him  to  believe  it.  After 
hearing  many  orators  herein,  the  word  of  this  one 
seems  to  linger. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

THE    AMERICAN    INVASION. 

WE  HAVE  in  the  foregoing  pages  dealt  with  many 
different  angles  of  the  question  of  colonization,  and 
have  adverted  to  many  of  the  most  prominent 
theories  regarding  it.  The  subject  is  one  rich  in 
discussion,  and  what  is  of  far  more  importance,  rich 
in  sober,  almost  in  solemn  thought.  Only  with 
reluctance  does  one  leave  the  vast  field  of  English 
belief  and  English  comment,  bearing  upon  the  welfare 
of  Great  Britain  as  Great  Britain,  for  view  of  yet 
another  of  the  many  angles  which  offer  in  the  subject, 
as  viewed  by  Canadian  and  "Yankee"  eyes. 

One  point  of  view  forces  itself  upon  attention,  and 
that  not  upon  the  ground  of  theory,  but  of  actual 
fact.  No  study  of  the  colonization  of  Canada  can 
avoid  consideration  of  the  so-called  "American  inva- 
sion," because  this  represents  a  factor  which  will  have 
tremendous  influence  in  the  future  of  Canada  and  in 
the  complication  of  Canada's  problem.  There  are 

168 


THE  AMERICAN  INVASION  169 

not  lacking  very  many  Canadians  to-day  who  declare 
that  the  interests  of  Canada  are  more  germane  to 
those  of  the  United  States  than  those  of  England. 

Fifteen  years  ago  Winnipeg  had  but  thirty  thous- 
and inhabitants,  and  there  was  no  other  town  in 
western  Canada  worth  more  than  the  name  of 
village.  After  the  cheap  railroad  lands  of  western 
Canada  came  on  the  market,  a  steady  influx  of 
population  ensued,  so  that  in  1903  over  one  hundred 
and  thirty  thousand  persons  settled  in  western 
Canada.  In  1905  one  hundred  and  forty-six  thousand 
came  in.  Since  then  the  numbers  have  varied,  but 
last  year  nearly  sixty  thousand  "Yankees"  crossed 
the  border  to  settle  in  western  Canada.  In  the  year 
previous  fifty  thousand  had  come.  For  the  first 
four  years  of  the  present  century,  the  average  of  the 
American  invasion  was  between  twenty  and  fifty 
thousand  annually. 

For  the  last  few  years  ill-assorted  immigrants 
have  been  coming  into  the  eastern  cities  of  the  United 
States  at  the  rate  of  about  a  million  a  year.  Although 
the  greater  proportion  of  these  remain  in  the  cities,  very 
large  numbers  naturally  go  to  increase  the  demand 
for  American  farming  land.  The  government  of  the 
United  States  has  left  practically  no  homestead  or 


170  THE  SOWING 

other  cheap  lands  for  its  people.  Meantime,  and 
more  especially  in  the  last  two  years,  a  very  consider- 
able popular  discontent  has  existed  in  the  United 
States  over  the  growth  of  American  monopolies  or 
"trusts,"  as  they  are  known.  Seeing  the  prices  of 
farming  lands  continually  rising — they  have  doubled 
in  value  through  the  Middle  West  in  the  last  ten  years, 
good  farming  lands  selling  as  high  as  $200  an  acre  in 
Illinois,  $60  and  $80  in  Minnesota,  $40  and  $50  per 
acre  in  Dakota, — and  at  the  same  time  seeing  the 
American  tax  on  living  continually  rising,  a  great 
many  western  farmers  who  wished  additional  land  for 
their  sons,  saw  their  opportunity  in  the  new  cheap 
lands  of  Canada — such  an  opportunity  as  could  never 
exist  again  anywhere  in  the  United  States.  This  was 
the  actual  reason  for  the  American  invasion  of 
Canada.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  western 
Canadian  land  advance  was  due  to  American  dis- 
covery, American  financing  and  American  peopling 
in  very  large  measure.  The  younger  sons  of  the 
United  States  rushed  out  into  the  remaining  new 
lands  and  laid  hold  of  opportunity,  even  though  it 
existed  under  a  different  flag. 

Now  it  is  to  be  remembered  always  that  these 
young  farmers  left  their  early  home  deliberately,  and 


THE  AMERICAN  INVASION  171 

not  through  any  stress  of  poverty.  They  did  not 
largely  come  from  exhausted  New  England  and  the 
overcrowded  East,  but  most  largely  from  the  choicest 
farming  sections  of  the  western  United  States. 
They  came,  not  because  they  were  too  poor,  but 
because  they  were  too  rich  to  stay  at  home, — because 
they  had  money  with  which  to  buy  land  and  operate 
it.  Not  one  of  these  needed  any  sort  of  help.  Every 
one  of  them  was  a  practical  farmer,  and  so  far  from 
needing  to  learn  anything  about  farming  in  western 
Canada,  he  came  prepared  to  teach  the  Canadians 
many  things  which  they  did  not  know  about  wheat 
raising  in  precisely  that  sort  of  country.  It  was 
these  men  who  did  the  proving  of  the  Davidson 
theory,  and  it  was  they  who  succeeded  where  early 
English  farming  had  failed,  in  Manitoba,  Saskatche- 
wan and  Alberta. 

These  men  were  the  product  of  the  environment 
of  the  American  continent.  If  they  had  not  been  of 
American  birth,  at  least  they  were  of  American 
education  in  actual  farming.  Such  men  would  scoff 
at  the  suggestion  of  assistance,  even  of  advice.  Per- 
haps one  of  them  would  come  up  on  a  preliminary 
trip  to  select  his  ground.  A  second  journey  would 
find  him  with  his  family  and  household  belongings 


172  THE  SOWING 

at  the  railway  station  nearest  to  his  land.  The  week 
following  that  arrival  would  see  him  on  his  land,  with 
some  sort  of  quarters  erected,  and  the  work  of  break- 
ing the  ground  begun.  Almost  none  of  these  men 
came  with  less  than  one  thousand  dollars  of  his 
own  money — not  the  money  of  any  charitable  organ- 
ization or  of  any  government — and  some  Canadian 
officials  were  of  the  belief  that  an  average  of  three 
thousand  dollars  for  each  such  settler  would  have 
been  below  the  truth. 

Now,  take  these  strong,  hardy  and  perfectly 
educated  young  farmers — in  one  year  4,600  from 
Dakota,  6,000  from  Minnesota,  1,500  from  Illinois, 
all  choice  farming  states  of  the  West — set  them  down 
on  the  best  selected  lands  of  the  Canadian  West,  each 
with  means  to  make  his  own  start,  and  self-reliance 
to  do  much  more  than  make  a  start;  and  then  com- 
pare the  situation  with  that  suggested  in  our  earlier 
discussions  of  the  handling  of  the  assisted  immigrant 
of  England. 

All  life  is  a  competition.  What  harder  com- 
petition in  the  world  can  the  assisted  English  im- 
migrant find  than  this  "Yankee"  competition,  already 
installed,  established  and  fortified  in  that  very  region 
which  England  says  is  the  natural  inheritance  of  the 


THE  AMERICAN  INVASION  173 

English  poor?  The  answer  is,  in  one  sense  and 
from  one  limited  viewpoint,  foregone.  It  is  the 
answer  of  disciplined  troops  in  contest  with  raw, 
weak,  starved  and  heartbroken  militia.  That  is  to 
say,  such  is  the  answer  if  we  suppose  western  Can- 
ada a  site  of  barbarism  and  not  of  civilization.  As 
to  that,  we  must  remember  that  all  things  are  rela- 
tive, and  that  we  must  consider  the  give-and-take, 
the  balance,  the  proportion,  the  level-finding  of 
civilized  life,  where  many  men,  many  races  mingle, 
the  result  being  a  composite  made  up  of  weak  who 
have  failed,  weak  who  have  grown  stronger,  strong 
who  have  grown  weaker,  and  so  on  ;  the  one  thing 
sure  being  that  good  strength,  innate  or  acquired, 
natural  or  attained,  is  what  will  win  and  what  will 
prevail.  Either  in  civilization  or  savagery,  in  Eng-- 
land  or  in  Canada,  in  city  or  on  the  far  frontier, 
always  the  weak  learn  from  the  strong. 

It  does  not  take  a  second  thought  to  see  how  and 
how  much  the  American  invasion  comes  into  the 
question  of  Canadian  colonization.  The  "Yankee"  is 
not  a  threat,  but  a  fact.  He  has  come,  and  come  to 
stay;  and  there  are  more  of  him  coming,  hundreds  of 
thousands  more.  He  is  alike  the  most  desired  and 
the  most  dreaded  immigrant  who  has  come  or  can 


174  THE  SOWING 

come  to  the  Canadian  West.  With  him  comes  the 
American  standard  of  life,  which  is  in  direct  conflict 
with  the  European  standard.  With  the  "Yankee" 
comes  the  higher  standard  of  living,  because  he  comes 
from  a  country  where  men,  women  and  children  are 
not  content  with  the  food,  the  clothing,  or  the  housing 
which  was  sufficient  for  their  fathers.  Moreover,  this 
is  a  progressive  standard.  It  is  something  which 
comes  out  of  the  soil  and  air  and  stimulus  of  the 
American  continent.  Now  it  is  this  standard,  it  is 
this  situation  which  the  assisted  immigrant  must 
face.  It  is  Success  which  Despair  must  confront, 
even  thus  early  in  the  swift  history  of  western 
Canada,  the  newest  of  all  the  cultivable  lands.  But 
despair  itself  gains  hope  and  strength  from  contact 
with  success. 

What  answer  has  English  thought  found  for  this 
American  invasion  and  all  that  it  must  mean  in  the 
future?  So  far  as  the  author  is  able  to  discover, 
there  has  been  small  answer  of  any  practical  sort. 
Abundance  of  theorizing  there  has  been,  to  be  sure. 
One  writer  says:  "Canada  is  in  the  presence  of  an 
ethnic  problem  such  as  no  country  ever  faced  before." 
That  is  very  true,  but  what  does  it  really  mean  in 
actual  plan  for  actual  deeds  ?  We  want  some  phrase 


THE  AMERICAN  INVASION  175 

sharper,  more  biting  than  "ethnic  problem.''  This 
is  a  big  business  problem. 

Another  finds  the  old  inefficient  national  or  racial 
answer,  and  with  loyalty  to  Great  Britain  declares: 
"  While  urging  the  unfairness  of  unloading  dependents 
upon  us,  we  should  be  very  careful  how  we  reject  any 
of  our  own  blood.  We  should  keep  in  mind  what 
Commander  Booth  answered  to  those  who  said  that 
the  emigration  to  the  colonies  of  British  men  was  race 
suicide.  He  asked,  if  the  colonies  should  be  filled 
up  and  dominated  by  men  of  other  races,  what  sort 
of  suicide  that  would  be  ?  We  need  all  the  British  we 
can  get  to  balance  the  strangers  that  are  seeking  our 
shores."  Bring  British,  then;  and  if  they  be  weak, 
let  them  gain  hope  and  strength  from  contact  with 
the  strong  ! 

Yet  another,  a  somewhat  alarmed  if  fully  kindly 
gentleman,  a  minister  of  the  Gospel,  one  takes  it, 
gravely  recommends  the  encouragement  of  marriage 
in  the  Christian  Endeavor  and  other  societies  of 
England,  more  especially  among  those  assisted  British 
subjects  who  form  the  mooted  topic  of  discussion  on 
both  sides  of  the  sea,  as  may  be  witnessed  in  our 
earlier  pages!  Encourage  Christian  marriage,  then, 


176  THE  SOWING 

and  if  its   offspring  prove  weak,  let  it  grow   strong 

from  contact  with  the  strong  ! 

The  Psalmist  of  old  described  the  human  heart  as 
deceitful  above  all  things  and  desperately  wicked. 
Self -deceptive,  we  may  call  it  sometimes  to-day,  and 
often  desperately  narrow.  Yet  of  what  value  is  a 
prejudiced  point  of  view,  a  foregone  conclusion,  in  an 
argument  where  the  only  valuable  intent  is  to  arrive 
at  the  truth?  How  does  it  serve  England,  Canada 
or  the  United  States  to  indulge  in  self-deception  or  in 
preconceived  conclusion  in  their  respective  points  of 
view  of  this  American  invasion?  Surely  the  truth 
itself  is  hard  enough  to  read  for  the  future.  Thus  a 
prominent  journal  of  the  United  States  admits  that  it 
can  see  no  answer  to  the  questions  of  this  invasion ; 
although  it  handles  the  matter  in  terms  which  seem 
fairly  judicial  and  well  balanced: 

"A  good  many  Americans  have  viewed  with  much 
alarm  the  movement  of  population  from  the  north- 
western states  across  the  border  into  the  western 
provinces  of  Canada.  They  have  seen  in  it  a  weak- 
ening of  national  ties.  They  have  seen  in  it  a  loss  of 
splendid  citizenship.  The  earnest,  effective  and 
aggressive  rather  than  the  weaklings  are  the  ones 
who  are  pioneers.  The  marvelous  history  of  Ameri- 


THE  AMERICAN  INVASION  177 

can  development  is  repeated,  except  that  the  migra- 
tion is  carrying  the  people  into  the  domain  of  a 
foreign  power. 

"Sometimes  the  attitude  of  alarm  is  a  Canadian 
one.  A  recent  writer  in  an  English  magazine  tells 
of  immigrants  who  equal  in  number  those  from  the 
United  Kingdom  and  far  excel  them  in  individual 
strength  and  in  collective  alertness.  He  describes, 
also,  the  optimism  of  the  Canadians,  who  believe 
that  a  new  type  of  citizen  is  to  be  developed  from  the 
mixture  of  immigration,  the  substantial  basis  of  a 
new  Canadian  nation  long  dreamed  of  but  never  yet 
realized.  But  he  himself  cannot  see  how  the  com- 
paratively small  Canadian  population  can  withstand 
what  he  calls  the  'torrential  inrush'  of  forces  from 
across  the  line  which  threatens  to  swamp  it. 

"Americanization  rather  than  Canadianization 
is  everywhere  apparent.  This  expresses  itself  in  the 
press,  in  books,  in  barber  shops,  in  bars,  in  hotels, 
in  the  clothes  that  are  worn,  and  the  language  that 
is  spoken.  All  are  American.  Eastern  Canadian 
influence  is  waning  or  entirely  gone.  England  is  far 
away.  The  controlling  power  is  that  from  the  south. 
Even  when  the  Canadian  deputy  minister  of  labor  and 
the  Premier  of  Saskatchewan  tried  to  settle  a  coal  mine 


178  THE  SOWING 

strike,  they  were  forced  to  make  a  2,000  mile  journey 

to  Indiana  to  consult  with  John  Mitchell. 

"The  writer  mentioned  believed  that  commerce 

and  blood  will  be  far  more  powerful  in  determining 

the  future  than  a  slender  sentiment  of  British  do- 

•  minion.     The  advantage  of  commerce  is  with  the 

United  States.     Let  the  tariff  wall  be  torn  down,  and 

the  western  provinces  will  find  all  their  interests  on 

the  other  side  of  the  barb  wire  fence,  which  often  is 

the  only  thing  to  mark  the  passage  from  the  United 

.  States  into  a  foreign  land. 

"  It  is  an  interesting  problem  which  is  formulating 
in  the  Canadian  West.  The  solution  of  the 
problem  is  not  yet  discovered,  but  the  developments 
in  that  quarter  of  the  world  are  well  worth  watching 
as  the  months  go  by." 

As  to  this  issue,  Canada  and  the  Canadian 
Government  already  are  on  record ;  and  so  far  as  the 
army  of  the  "Yankee  invasion"  itself  is  concerned,  few 
of  its  members  would  pause  even  to  smile  at  correc- 
tives for  the  American  invasion  such  as  are  suggested 
above.  We  shall,  therefore,  need  to  go  further  into 
the  study  of  Canadian  colonization,  unless  in  despair 
we  are  here  to  abandon  the  whole  future  of  the  poor 
man  of  the  Old  World  who  has  not  had  his  chance. 


THE  AMERICAN  INVASION  179 

We  shall  need  to  go  still  further  with  the  question: 
What  can  be  done  by  way  of  helping  the  man  who  is 
not  yet  able  to  help  himself? 

Canada  has  no  special  privileges  to  offer  English, 
men  or  any  others  beyond  the  vastest  privilege  open 
to  man,  a  fair  field  and  no  favor.  The  new-comer, 
whatever  his  nationality,  must  be  ready  to  take  his 
buffets  and  not  whine.  When  the  American  pioneer 
moved  westward,  no  one  aided  him.  No  one  told 
him  where  to  go  or  showed  him  how  to  farm,  or  ex- 
plained anything  to  him  of  means  or  methods.  He 
had  to  learn  everything  alone  and  for  himself.  The 
fight  of  the  early  American  frontier  was  one  waged 
hand  to  hand.  A  series  of  individual  battles  was 
fought  on  a  picket  line  of  white  men,  flung  far  in 
advance  of  civilization,  with  all  bridges  burned  behind, 
and  no  roads  running  to  any  base  of  supplies.  There 
were  savages  for  the  "Yankee"  settler  to  fight  in  those 
days,  and  he  fought  them  alone.  There  were  no 
comforts  or  conveniences  for  him,  and  such  intel- 
lectuality as  he  had  was  not  second-hand.  There 
were  no  railroads,  no  telegraphs,  no  influences  or 
agencies  of  civilization  to  soften  hardship.  There 
was  no  Government  behind  him.  There  was  no 


180  THE  SOWING 

money  to  come  from  home.     Each  man  fought,  and 

fought  for  himself. 

That  was  the  old  way,  the  most  splendid  way  of 
settling  new  lands  the  world  ever  saw.  That  old  way, 
let  us  not  any  of  us,  whether  English,  "Yankee"  or 
Canadian,  hesitate  to  admit,  produced  a  splendid 
breed  of  self-reliant  men — men  who,  if  they  made 
mistakes,  at  least  have  made  large  ones.  But  that 
was  all  in  a  day  different  from  this,  a  day  when  strong 
men  travelled  of  their  own  wish.  The  strong  seek 
the  frontiers  even  to-day,  to  find  the  frontier  robbed 
of  all  its  terrors.  But  what  of  the  weak? 

Here,  now,  I  have  my  assisted  immigrant,  pale, 
anaemic,  not  strong,  not  skilled,  a  product  of  the  city 
and  of  generations  of  the  city.  He  comes  to  neighbor 
with  a  man  who  has  three  thousand  dollars  in  his 
pocket  as  against  a  brass  twopence  of  his  own — a 
two-pence  which  he  is  under  bond  to  repay,  after,  at  a 
cost  of  two  dollars  a  head,  he  has  been  located  like 
some  beast,  obedient  to  another's  will,  on  the  land 
which  has  been  selected  for  him,  not  which  he  has 
selected  for  himself.  He  comes,  this  assisted  immi- 
grant, a  cheerful  farewell  behind,  a  grudging  welcome 
greeting  him,  not  twenty  minutes  of  experience  in 
farming  his, — a  neighbor  to  the  man  who  came  without 


THE  AMERICAN  INVASION  181 

asking  and  without  assistance,  with  two  hundred 
years  of  practical  fitting  in  his  education.  He  meets 
a  man  of  independent  spirit,  of  the  same  old  type  who 
asked  odds  of  no  mortal  man.  But,  weak  as  he  is,  un- 
prepared as  he  is,  he  gets  hope  and  strength  from 
that  very  neighborship. 

Every  American  pioneer  could  drive  his  own 
team,  make  or  mend  his  own  tools,  build  his  own 
house,  furnish  it,  put  food  in  it.  The  poorest 
frontiersman  was  absolutely  independent,  and  he 
was  owner  of  absolute  self-confidence.  The  strong 
thrust  of  destiny  and  heredity  and  hope  were  all 
behind  him.  Of  him  indeed  it  might  be  said:  "It 
was  worth  while  to  hew  and  build ;  it  was  worth  while 
to  sow  and  reap  and  sow  again;  it  was  worth  while 
to  rear  children  in  all  the  cleanliness  and  simplicity 
of  country  living,  teaching  them  the  fear  of  God,  the 
love  of  country,  the  reverence  due  to  older  people, 
the  scorn  of  pride  and  slavery  and  oppression.  It 
was  worth  while  to  shape  towns  and  villages  and 
constitutions,  and  institutions,  and  a  free  state  in 
God's  open  field,  beneath  divine  overbending  skies, 
the  empire  of  good  will.  In  seeking  the  new  home 
they  new-found  themselves,  renewed  their  racial 
youth  in  perennial  inspiration."  It  was  a  teacher  in 


182  THE  SOWING 

the  American  West,  born  in  the  only  really  American 
part  of  America,  who  wrote  these'  lines.  Why  should 
they  not  also  appeal  to  the  weak  and  despairing  of 
an  older  world  to-day  ? 

Shall  the  weak  be  left  to  starve  because  they  are 
weak  ?  Does  government  mean  that  for  its  humanity  ? 
Has  civilization  no  better  corrective  than  that  to  offer 
for  its  own  abuses?  Does  civilization,  spite  of  the 
iron  law  of  competition,  owe  its  helpless  ones  no  duty  ? 
All  Canada,  sombre  and  serious  in  her  new  great 
days,  asks  that  England  shall  answer  that. 

An  emissary  from  Great  Britain  said  no  later 
than  yesterday:  "There  is  a  strong  British  sentiment 
throughout  Canada,  but  keenest  at  the  coast.'  The 
authorities  should  introduce  as  many  British  settlers 
as  possible  in  the  country  between  Winnipeg  and  the 
coast,  where  the  population  is  at  present  very  cosmo- 
politan . "  Now  it  is  precisely  this  introduction  of  B  ritish 
settlers  into  that  part  of  Canada  which  makes  the 
knotty  part  of  our  problem,  at  which  Canada  now 
pauses.  She  has  put  up  certain  bars  against  England } 
but  how  about  bars  against  America?  That  British 
settler  in  this  middle  country  meets  the  American 
invasion — which  found  that  country,  made  it  feasible, 
and  is  taking  it  in  part — the  "Yankee,"  admittedly 


THE  AMERICAN  INVASION  183 

indispensable,  but  in  some  thoughtless  quarters   dis- 
liked and  even  dreaded  ! 

The  very  pretty  little  problem,  moreover,  does 
not  lack  its  other  complications.  Now  comes 
Australia,  with  conditions  in  very  many  respects 
quite  as  easy,  a  country  quite  as  rich,  and  with  land 
laws  the  most  liberal  on  earth,  and  makes  her  bid 
for  English  immigration.  We  shall  have  more  to  say 
of  the  Australian  method,  presently.  Just  now  it  is 
sufficient  to  say  that  every  English  settler  who  de- 
serts Canada  for  Australia  leaves  just  that  much 
more  opening  in  Canada  for  the  American  invasion. 
We  have  not  yet  got  any  answer.  We  only  have 
found  problems. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

THE    TRANSPLANTING. 

"THE  wilderness  lies  shining  before  us.  It  is  old 
and  silent.  Would  you  know  its  secrets?  Read  the 
rocky  record  which  lies  behind,  around,  beneath;  and 
be  assured  that,  once  the  story  of  yesterday  were 
understood,  the  facts  of  to-day  would  ask  no  wider 
explanation.  The  physical  forces  of  this  world  still 
drive  the  loom  that  weaves  the  web  of  life.  Before 
the  loom  the  unseen  weaver  sits,  guiding  her  web  that 
passes  to  an  endless  roll,  changing  withal  the  width, 
the  pattern,  as  conditions  rise.  Changes  her  arabes- 
que, it  is  for  cause;  changes  it  not,  it  is  alike  for 
cause.  And  if  at  intervals  as  we  watch  anon  new 
figures  rise,  may  it  not  be  but  the  return  of  some 
earlier  triumphant  cycle,  that  here  begins  anewt 
evident  enough  in  cause  and  feature  were  once  that 
giant  scroll  unrolled,  or  were  her  watchers  more 
patient,  more  enduring?  Alas,  in  presence  of  this 

184 


Long  Li vi-  the  K 


THE  TRANSPLANTING  185 

mighty  loom,  what  fleeting,  evanescent  interpreters 
are  we!" 

These  words,  written  by  one  who  has  found  his 
life  work  in  geology,  a  student,  a  great  scientist,  are 
wholesome  for  pondering  by  those  who  essay  the 
uncertain  field  of  sociology.  They  ought  to  teach 
the  human  humility  which  should  replace  mere  self- 
seeking  and  self-sufficiency.  They  ought  to  teach 
unwillingness  to  announce  any  infallible  plan  for  the 
solution  of  theorems  which  nature  is  accustomed  to 
work  out  for  herself,  in  her  own  way,  and  in  spite  of 
man's  meddling. 

Yet,  if  we  be  daring  enough  to  sally  into  any 
difficult  field,  there  will  be  satisfaction  if  we  can 
repeat  that  in  attempting  its  large  problems  we  have 
used  the  large  methods  of  research  and  of  science, 
rather  than  to  have  yielded  to  the  temptation  to  give 
mere  selfishness  the  guise  of  reason.  All  life  is 
selfishness,  all  national  growth  surely  is  selfishness; 
yet  when  selfishness  touches  logic,  logic  flees. 

Except  in  dispassionate  reasoning,  there  is  no 
conclusion  worth  the  having.  Let  us  at  least  claim 
so  much  as  dispassionateness  for  our  pages;  and 
claim  also  that  we  have  sought  to  collect  without 
fear  or  favor  a  number  of  premises,  in  the  belief  that, 


186  THE  SOWING 

conflicting  as  they  seem,  they  yet  may  be  found  to 

offer  some  valid  conclusion. 

We  may  without  contradiction  claim  that  we  have 
reduced  the  argument  on  Canadian  colonization 
practically  to  the  conflict  between  the  hard  head  and 
the  soft  heart.  "Ah,"  you  say,  "that  is  to  leave  it 
where  we  found  it!"  Perhaps  we  may  claim  rather 
more  than  that.  Perhaps  we  dare  say  that  a  recon- 
ciliation of  this  conflict  not  only  may  be  but  must  be 
found.  Perhaps  we  dare  say  that  England  not  only 
may  but  must  contrive  something  definite  in  the  way 
of  governmental  policy;  that  philanthropy  not  only 
may  but  must  mend  its  ways.  Like  most  answers  to 
hard  problems,  this  is  the  simplest  and  most  obvious. 
The  only  difficulty  in  reading  it  lies  in  that  blindness 
which  comes  of  narrowness  and  selfishness — our 
refusal  to  admit  that  as  human  beings  we  are  but  small 
atoms  on  the  world — our  refusal  to  admit  that  it  is 
our  vast  conceit  and  not  our  vast  knowledge  which 
holds  us  fast  to  the  old,  useless,  hopeless  ways. 

It  is  national  conceit  in  Europe,  in  Canada,  in  the 
United  States,  which  says  that  times  have  not 
changed,  which  points  out  the  old  ways  of  settling  a 
country  and  declares  that  those  ways  are  good 
enough  to-day.  The  corollary  of  such  conceit  is  ruin. 


THE  TRANSPLANTING  187 

For  instance,  the  ways  of  the  United  States  in 
settling  its  new  lands  were  excellent  in  their  time. 
They  built  up  a  splendid,  aggressive  manhood,  built 
up  a  rich  and  resourceful  country.  Yet  to  apply 
those  ways  to  Canada  to-day  would  be  to  cut  Canada 
off  from  the  British  Empire  as  surely  as  that  the  sun 
will  rise  !  Assuredly,  unless  she  shall  open  her 
eyes  to  the  fact  that  these  are  new  and  different  days, 
that  the  world  has  changed,  and  that  those  who  do 
not  change  with  the  times  must  perish  of  the  times, 
then  England's  fate  will  be  that  of  all  the  blind. 

That  is  the  reduction.  Let  us  push  the  reduction 
to  an  absurdity.  By  elimination  let  us  get  at 
remedies.  Let  -us  say  that  Canada  does  not  wish  to 
separate  from  England.  Very  good,  so  much  the 
more  narrows  our  field  of  thought  and  conjecture. 
Suppose  we  review  briefly  that  narrowed  field — but 
accepting  the  truth  that  what  once  would  have  served 
will  now  no  longer  serve  in  national  ways ;  that  times 
do  change,  and  that  new  methods  must  be  found. 

We  can  go  on  safely  to  say  that  mere  enthusiasm, 
mere  compassion  and  even  mere  disinterestedness, 
cannot  avail  to  solve  the  problems  of  the  poor.  Such 
problems  are  not  those  of  sentiment,  and  they  can  be 
solved  by  no  idealism  which  is  devoid  of  commonsense 


188  THE  SOWING 

as  well.  If  England  indefinitely  is  to  maintain  her 
ancient  and  strong  position  among  the  shifting  and 
growing  nations  of  the  world,  she  needs  to  work  to 
some  agreed  and  accepted  type  of  practical  coloniza- 
tion, governed  by  a  practical  philanthropy,  stipulated 
and  regulated  by  the  government  itself.  She  can 
afford  few  farther  experiments.  Certainly  she  can- 
not afford  to  handle  her  problem  on  the  same  old 
basis  of  charity  and  gratuity,  of  collecting  and  dump- 
ing. Canada  cannot  afford  to  make  those  mis- 
takes which  the  United  States  is  making  even  now, 
so  rapidly  and  so  terribly, — mistakes  which  surely 
will  result  in  the  adulteration  and  weakening  of  its 
population. 

We  safely  can  advance,  then,  to  the  point  of  saying 
that  packed  populations  must  not  be  dispersed  hit-or- 
miss,  must  not  be  lumped  and  massed  and  left  to 
starve  in  the  same  old  way  in  different  surroundings. 
We  dare  to  say  that  immigration  should  be  distributed 
in  appointed  places,  where  each  unit  shall  help  the 
most  and  hurt  the  least.  Ah,  give  them  room, — room 
to  grow,  to  breathe,  to  rear  good  children,  to  grow  up 
into  good  men  and  women ;  room  to  feel  that  religion 
and  human  kindness  and  hope  are  not  bitter  lies; 
room  so  to  live  that  they  shall  not  curse  God  and  ask 


THE  TRANSPLANTING  189 

to  die!     Surely  we  can  say  all  this,  and  hold  our 
ground,  can  we  not? 

Direct  transplanting  of  helpless  and  unfit  human 
plants  means  ruin.  The  handling  of  the  human 
plant,  stage  by  stage,  up  again  to  the  full  plane  of 
human  usefulness — that  is  a  great  work.agtcm/work. 
It  is  big  enough  for  any  giant  in  government, 
for  any  giant  in  philanthropy,  any  giant  among  men 
or  among  nations. 

That  task  is  to  insure  a  start  back  to  the  land  on 
such  terms  as  will  not  insure  death  and  failure.  It 
offers  a  fighting  chance  to  those  who  would  work  if 
they  had  the  opportunity.  For  those  who  cannot 
work  when  chance  is  offered, — Ah,  let  us  look  aside 
and  uncover  as  death  goes  by!  Let  the  civilization 
which  has  slain  give  interment  to  its  dead.  To  give  . 
those  in  whom  the  vital  spark  is  not  yet  gone  an 
opportunity  to  grow — that  is  task  enough  for  any  giant 
among  the  nations. 

Yet,  so  far  as  known,  no  large  experiment  of 
practical  sort  ever  has  been  worked  out  in  Canadian 
colonization.  It  has,  as  our  foregoing  pages  prove, 
all  been  hit-or-miss,  philanthropy,  politics,  selfishness, 
touchy  charity  and  tricky  business,  vying  with  each 
other  as  to  which  could  make  the  most  mistakes  and 


190  THE  SOWING 

do  the  most  harm  alike  to  England  and  to  Canada. 
May  we  not  safely  say — always  adhering  to  our  state- 
ment that  times  have  changed — that  the  solution  of 
such  a  question  no  longer  should  be  left  to  conflicting 
ideas  and  to  the  warring  interests  of  individuals? 
The  joint  thought  of  a  government,  the  joint 
thought  of  a  nation  is  none  too  great  and  wise  for 
such  a  question.  May  we  not  agree  to  this  ?  May 
we  not  safely  say  that  we  have  come  step  by  step 
up  to  the  gate  of  the  government  ?  May  we  not 
logically  lay  -such  question  at  the  door  of  England 
itself  ? 

England  can  save  a  generation  of  time  in  coloniza- 
tion if  she  likes.  On  the  other  hand,  she  can,  if  she 
likes,  lose  that  generation.  By  taking  thought,  she 
can  add  a  cubit  to  the  stature  of  the  empire,  and 
herself  can  add  a  century  to  the  empire's  life.  That 
is  to  say,  she  can  offer  a  colonization  which  an 
immigrant  can  accept  without  losing  his  self-respect, 
and  without  losing  his  usefulness  to  the  Dominion. 
Or,  as  alternative,  she  can  go  along  in  the  same  old 
ways,  through  this  or  the  other  changing  adminis- 
tration, this  or  the  other  changing  policy,  and  let 
matters  take  care  of  themselves  as  they  always  have, 
one  theory  quarrelling  with  another,  one  organization 


THE  TRANSPLANTING  191 

wrangling  with  another,  and  all  striving  against 
natural  law  and  natural  commonsense. 

England,  if  she  likes,  can  refuse  to  believe  that  any 
human  sowing  is  possible  except  the  same  old  sowing 
which  has  rotted  human  life  in  the  centers  of  civiliza- 
tion heretofore.  She  can  refuse  to  transplant  intelli- 
gently ;  Canada  can  refuse  to  accept.  Canada  can  refuse 
to  care  for,  to  prune  and  to  guide  the  human  plants 
offered  her.  Whether  she -shall  or  shall  not  refuse  is 
for  Canada  to  say;  or  for  some  great  man  of 
Canada  to  say.  In  such  partings  of  the  ways  lies 
the  choice  between  a  national  glory  and  a  national 
despair. 

That  parting  of  the  ways  comes  in  time  to  any 
new  land  seeking  population.  It  came  swiftly  to  the 
United  States,  all  too  swiftly ;  and  without  doubt  or 
question  the  United  States  chose  the  wrong  path, 
that  of  unregulated  individual  selfishness,  which 
assuredly  will  lead  to  later  retrogression.  The  new 
lands  of  the  United  States  are  no  longer  settled  by 
the  self -selected  dominant  frontiersman.  To-day  the 
United  States  rather  accepts  the  guidance  of  steam- 
ship companies  and  railways — individual  selfishness. 
The  result  is  swiftly  and  sadly  ripening  in  that  com- 
mercialism which  controls  even  American  politics 


192  THE  SOWING 

to-day,  which  makes  American  ideals  a  mockery 
before  the  world. 

Now  or  in  time  this  same  question  will  come  to 
Canada.  Shall  she  follow  the  example  of  the  Ameri- 
can Republic  in  keeping  the  talents  entrusted  to  her? 
What  shall  be  her  path  at  the  parting  of  the  ways? 
What  shall  be  the  population  average  for  the  Domin- 
ion, for  the  Empire?  Shall  so  great  a  question  be 
determined  in  these  changed  times  by  personal  greed 
or  personal  impulse  ?  Is  it  not  rather  for  a  government 
to  answer? 

Have  we  not  been  fair  thus  far?  If  we  have  not, 
the  fault  has  not  been  through  any  personal  bias  on  the 
author's  part.  If  there  has  been  weakness  of  reason- 
ing, it  has  not  been  through  weakness  of  intent.  Tell 
us  where  we  have  thus  far  been  unfair.  Where  are 
we  wrong  if  we  shall  lay  this  problem  at  the  door  of 
government?  Where  are  we  wrong  if  we  shall 
demand  that  government  shall  solve  the  problem  of 
the  hard  head  and  the  soft  heart  at  one  stroke; 
through  one  policy;  one  new  idea?  Where  shall  we 
be  wrong  if  we  point  out  a  plan  old  as  the  first  garden 
of  the  world,  and  simple  as  the  tilling  of  a  glebe! 

Whether  Canada  likes  it  or  not,  the  poor  of  the 
world  are  going  to  be  transplanted,  and  transplanted 


THE  TRANSPLANTING  193 

to  her  fields;  because  that  is  fate.  Now,  does  she 
wish  to  see  these  plants  wither  and  die,  or  to  see  them 
grow  to  stature  and  strength?  What  does  the 
gardener  do  with  his  new  plants,  weak  and  white  of 
tendril  ?  He  sets  them  out  near  to  some  well-builded 
trellis,  does  he  not?  He  shields  them  from  too  warm 
a  sun,  does  he  not;  from  too  great  a  cold?  He  trains 
them  to  look  aloft  to  that  stronger  trellis  for  support 
does  he  not?  And  then — 

And  then;  there  is  our  answer!  Its  cost,  its 
difficulty  may  not  logically  be  considered  at  all. 
There  is  the  answer!  This  is  to  be  done  by  govern- 
ment. Tell  us,  may  we  not  safely  go  thus  far,  and 
claim  that  no  other  answer  can  be  found  but  this? 

This  answer  already  is  suggested  by  fate.  It  al- 
ready has  been  approved  by  unsolicited  events.  There 
lie  the  fields,  already  provided  with  the  stake  and 
trellis,  over  hundreds  of  miles  already  ploughed  and 
sown  in  strong  and  fit  humanity.  These  hardy 
settlers  are  scattered  here  and  there  over  the  vast  new 
empire  of  the  Canadian  West. 

The  paths  of  the  world  go  apart  for  a  time,  but 
interbraid  again .  Two  old  paths  but  meet  here  again 
in  the  Canadian  West.  Back  on  the  old  and  usual 
one  still  are  the  hopeless  poor,  the  pale,  white  product 


194  THE  SOWING 

of  the  city;  the  poor,  the  hopeless,  despairing, 
apathetic,  awful,  deadly,  dreadful  poor. 

Transport  these,  down  the  broad  trail  of  empire, 
till  they  find  the  well  ordered  fields  where  the  new 
paths  come  in,  paths  where  stronger  men  have  fore- 
run them  to  begin  the  work,  to  prepare  the  fields 
with  stake  and  trellis. 

In  such  prepared  environment  set  out  your  plants, 
weak  and  white  of  tendril ;  and  ask  God  to  give  them 
watering;  and  trust  God  to  spell  the  answer. 

Take  that  answer,  whether  or  not  it  means  that 
Canada  is  to  remain  a  dependency  of  England. 
Great  England  will  not  be  great  until  she  dare  abide 
that  answer. 

One  thing  only  is  certain;  the  new-comer  in 
Canada  will  not  remain  Englishman,  "Yankee,"  Ger- 
man— he  will  become  Canadian.  The  soil  will  raise  its 
own  crop;  the  crop  will  adjust  itself  to  its  environ- 
ment. 

In  west  ern  Canada  there  is  environment  good  enough 
to  raise  men  and  women  in  type,  almost,  indeed,  "as 
much  superior  to  the  slum  dwellers  of  cities  as  man 
to-day  is  superior  to  Tyndal's  antediluvian  reptiles." 

Any  traveller  in  western  Canada  may  see  the 
miracle  of  modern  life  swiftly  set  in  place  on  this 


THE  TRANSPLANTING  195 

frontier;  roads,  schools,  intercommunication,  every 
anticipation  of  denser  settlement, — these  things  are 
accomplished  or  assured  in  advance  of  actual  settle- 
ment. Railroad  building  in  western  Canada  assumes 
enormous  proportions,  not  now  for  military  but  for 
industrial  reasons.  Wheat  must  be  carried.  It  pays 
its  own  way  as  it  goes.  It  no  longer  is  a  question 
whether  railways  may  risk  building  across  these  long 
unused  plains.  The  only  question  is  where  they  can 
find  steel  and  wood  and  men  to  do  the  work.  This 
tremendous  sweep  to  the  westward  of  the  white  race 
across  the  provinces  of  western  Canada  is  an  aston- 
ishing, an  absorbing,  a  tremendous,  an  epochal  thing. 
It  was  not  England  planned  it.  It  was  a  thing  solemnly 
ordained  in  the  stars. 

When  need  was,  these  new  fields  were  discovered 
ready  for  human  planting,  because  elsewhere  the 
hotbeds  were  overcrowded.  Since  need  is,  already 
these  new  fields  are  planted  with  the  strong,  already 
the  trellises  are  ready  for  the  weak.  The  dream  of 
philanthropy  itself  is  ready  to  come  true.  The  hope 
of  the  hard-headed  idealist  is  within  reach  even  now. 

"  Take  the  English  farmer  and  the  English  farmer's 
sons;  take  the  thrifty  and  industrious  from  the 
smaller  towns ;  take  the  able-bodied  and  the  courage- 


196  THE  SOWING 

ous  from  the  crowded  cities.  Segregate  them  on 
Canadian  farms.  You  will  give  England  what  she 
most  needs — more  room;  and  you  will  give  Canada 
good  citizens."  The  foregoing  is  a  conclusion  of  an 
official  long  connected  with  this  colonization  work. 
As  it  stands,  will  it  serve  as  our  answer?  No.  It 
has  the  old  demerit  of  vagueness,  the  old  failure  in 
comprehensiveness,  the  old  lack  of  definite  plan 
worked  out  in  actual  specifications. 

But,  for  the  time,  admit  it  as  it  stands.  Go  back 
to  the  words  of  the  Minister  of  the  Interior  for  that 
other  abstraction,  that  the  real  function  of  govern- 
ment is  to  do  the  most  good  for  the  world.  Then,  if 
you  please — since  visualization  is  good  as  against 
vague  discussion — let  us  paint  for  ourselves  a  little 
picture  in  western  Canada. 

There  is  a  vast  fertile  tract  of  land,  not  entirely 
owned  under  any  one  fee.  Over  it  are  scattered 
many  farms,  built  up  by  men  who  have  learned  the 
secret  of  wheat  farming,  men  bred  for  the  frontier. 
Around  these  smaller  holdings  are  others,  scattered, 
owned  by  some  large  philanthropist  who  has  tired  of 
dipping  at  the  sink  hole  back  in  London,  who  has 
tired  of  settlement  work  and  the  bread  line;  who  has 
learned  the  folly  of  trying  to  solve  "the  city's  problem 


THE  TRANSPLANTING  197 

so  long  as  city  folk  crowd  in,  continually  polluting 
the  flood  of  that  humanity  which  never  was  meant  to 
flow  always  between  even  the  most  glorious  city  walls ; 
who  has  wearied  of  the  mockery  of  salving  over  his 
conscience. 

This  philanthropist,  let  us  say,  has  taken  with  him 
into  this  work — a  labor  large  enough  for  any  Croesus 
with  a  conscience — others  who  have  made  so  much 
money  that  at  last  there  has  come  to  them  the 
thought  that  perhaps  this  money  was  not  theirs 
after  all;  that  what  they  thought  belonged  to  them 
as  individuals,  belonged  instead  to  the  world.  These 
decide  now  to  consecrate  a  part  of  this  money  to  the 
poor.  They  consecrate  it  as  well  to  the  cause  of 
intelligence — not  to  Socialism,  mind  you,  but  to  the 
very  opposite  of  Socialism;  to  the  cause  of  that 
individualism  under  whose  ways  they  themselves 
won  fortune. 

For  the  sake  of  the  greatest  and  most  splendid 
game  that  can  be  played  on  earth,  they  consecrate  a 
part  of  this  money  to  the  cause  of  evolution,  the  cause 
of  individualism,  to  the  labor  of  providing  opportunity 
to  the  most  valuable  of  all  created  things,  the  human 
being — the  human  being  which  has  not  yet  had 
environment. 


198  THE  SOWING 

Since  in  the  new  days  of  the  world — times  having 
changed — opportunity  has  not  been  possible  for 
these,  they  now  resolve  to  make  it  possible;  and  that 
thing  they  do.  They  work  with  the  aid  and  interest 
of  the  government.  They  work  under  government 
plan;  with  their  own,  they  spend  government 
money  also. 

These  hard-headed  idealists  take  these  poor  of  the 
Old  World  or  of  the  New,  pass  them  through  a  grave 
and  kind  inspection  on  the  gathering  ground,  that  of 
a  board  elected  by  the  best  non-political  thought  of 
the  nation.  They  transplant  these  poor,  let  us  say, 
across  seas,  into  Canada.  How?  Thrown  down  like 
waste  seed,  that  the  thorns  and  thistles  may  spring 
up  and  choke  them?  No,  that  is  not  intelligence, 
that  is  not  business,  that  is  not  commonsense.  That 
is  only  to  employ  the  method  of  to-day,  a  day  which 
soon  will  pass. 

No,  they  take  these  poor  to  the  ordered  and 
appointed  fields;  they  place  them  along  the  trellises 
of  the  strong,  at  the  side  of  men  who  have  gained 
opportunity  by  another  route. 

Government  is  back  of  this  work,  supervises  it, 
controls  it,  owns  part  of  this  land.  Government 
supports  yonder  great  buildings  of  the  Central  Farms, 


THE  TRANSPLANTING  199 

where  instruction  may  be  had  not  at  the  cost  of  self- 
respect — a  paternal  enterprise  not  dreamed  and  not 
needed  in  times  when  men  could  work  out  their  own 
problems:  but  needed  now,  because  all  this  world 
has  so  swiftly  changed,  and  because  the  old  ways  will 
no  longer  do. 

Once  government  needed  not  be  so  paternal,  but 
now  it  must  be.  Some  such  evolutionary  plan  as  this 
must  be  devised,  else  we  must  see  that  black  Satyr 
grown  more  immense; — or  see  arise  in  the  streets  of 
our  city  again  that  other  and  worse  monster,  the  red 
spectre  of  the  guillotine — when  humanity  again  shall 
rebel  and  make  the  city  streets  run  red. 

Those  are  your  alternatives.  That  is  your  answer. 
It  is  the  answer  of  a  prepared  environment.  There  is 
no  other  which  can  possibly  leave  Canada  true  to  her 
mission  of  doing  good  for  all  the  world. 

Several  different  students  have  arrived  by  other 
paths  at  this  general  idea  of  great  central  training 
stations,  conducted  by  the  Dominion  government, 
and  financed  by  that  of  England,  where  new-comers 
may  remain  on  a  semi-self-supporting  basis  for  a 
year  or  more  while  learning  the  methods  of  western 
farming.  In  most  parts  of  the  country  their  con- 
clusions have  been  laughed  at  as  absurdities.  The 


200  THE  SOWING 

imagination  of  their  critics  has  been  staggered  at 
the  figures  of  cost,  which  really  are  enormous. 

If  we  could  remove  from  the  reckoning  this  last 
element,  that  of  cost,  and  show  that  the  whole  of  even 
so  large  an  enterprise  could  be  made  to  pay  for  itself, 
would  we  then  be  acquitted  of  the  charge  of  chimerical 
interference  and  rattle-brained  enthusiasm?  Cer- 
tainly of  that  charge  we  must  be  acquitted;  for  we 
have  been  free  enough  with  the  accusation  that  others 
have  been  over-enthusiastic  and  chimerical.  But  if 
we  can  reconcile  the  old  war  between  head  and  heart, 
shall  we  stand  acquitted  ?  Shall  we  stand  accredited 
with  clean  intention,  and  with  a  dream  at  least  not 
unworthy  a  business  man's  regard?  Yet  all  this  is 
not  impossible.  It  is  not  impossible,  but  easy!  This 
work  has  not  been  done  in  Canada,  but  it  is  only 
because  we  have  not  done  it! 

The  Dominion  government  and  Dominion  cor- 
porations spend  twenty-five  millions  of  dollars  at 
enlarging  the  colonial  domain  by  irrigation.  Why? 
To  give  the  land  to  "Yankees"?  The  United  States 
government  is  doing  much  more  in  reclamation  enter- 
prise in  its  own  West.  Why?  It  purposes  to  give 
the  land  to  practical  farmers.  Put  these  two  facts 
together,  and  do  a  brief  bit  of  logic  for  yourself.  The 


THE  TRANSPLANTING  201 

charitable  societies  of  England  have  spent  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  pounds  in  senseless  aid  to  emigration. 
Why? 

Suppose  the  British  government,  plus  Canada. 
plus  charity,  plus  private  wealth  with  a  conscience,  plus 
the  ancient  dream  that  all  men  are  indeed  free  and 
equal, — should  spend  twenty-five  millions  of  dollars, 
plus  some  hundreds  of  thousands  of  pounds,  in  planting 
men  and  women  in  the  trellised  fields.  Suppose  the 
Dominion  in  time,  instead  of  loose-handed  home- 
steading,  established  a  sub-plan  of  homesteading,  and 
reserved  some  numbers  of  forty  acre  tracts,  to  be  sold 
to  new-come  Englishmen  on  easy  payments,  after 
they  had  been  trained  to  farm.  What  would  happen 
then?  Why  should  it  not  happen  as  much  for  a 
government  as  for  a  private  enterprise? 

Each  spade  that  goes  into  the  dirt,  each  furrow 
turned  by  a  plough,  adds  definite  value  to  every  other 
acre  near  and  far  over  a  vast  region  around  it.  There 
comes  your  unearned  increment,  which  foots  all 
private  real  estate  enterprises.  The  larger  the  work, 
the  larger  the  increment.  Why  should  it  not  come 
to  a  business  government  as  much  as  to  a  business 
man?  Why  cannot  philanthropy  see  that  you  can 
only  help  a  man  when  you  help  him  to  help  himself? 


.202  THE  SOWING 

If  you  say  this  cannot  be,  you  have  your  right  to 
that ;  but  with  equal  right  you  at  the  same  time  say 
that  to-day  is  yesterday;  and  that  to-morrow  also 
will  be  yesterday.  Do  you  say  that? 

The  human  spark  of  hope  and  ambition  is  not 
dead  in  our  new-comer.  Let  us  go  back  to  our 
settler.  Let  us  see  him  laboring  intelligently,  with 
that  increased  determination  which  comes  out  of  the 
soil  of  a  new  country.  Now  he  begins  to  "  get  ahead," 
as  the  phrase  goes.  He  and  his  family  eat;  eat  all 
they  want;  but  the  State  does  not  pay  for  their  meal. 
Why  cannot  he,  as  well  as  John  Johnson  from  Sweden, 
or  John  Smith  from  the  States,  in  time  pay  for  his  own 
land;  if  not  so  soon  as  they,  at  least  in  proportion 
with  his  increment  ? 

He  does  pay  for  it,  in  two  or  three,  or  five,  or  a 
dozen  years;  and  he  pays  to  a  hard-headed  philan- 
thropy five  per  cent,  to  carry  it  as  well.  Our  govern- 
ment-millionaire-charitable enterprise  has  financed 
itself,  after  all!  It  has  cost  nothing  but  one  large 
resolution.  It  has  needed  nothing  but  one  practical 
administration  in  detail. 

But  where  was  the  greatest  profit?  Was  it  that 
little  five  per  cent,  in  money?  Ah,  no.  It  was  usury 
that  Canada  earned,  that  England  took, — vast, 


THE  TRANSPLANTING  203 

splendid,  happy  usury  that  the  world  took,  when  it 
realized  that  the  world's  conditions  change  from 
century  to  century,  but  that  the  world's  intent — the 
progress  of  humanity — does  not  change  at  all !  To  do 
good  for  the  world — that  is  the  ambition  of  govern- 
ments and  the  intention  of  the  centuries. 

Suppose  this  wholly  visionary  and  absurd  thing — 
which  is  wholly  visionary  and  absurd  because  it  has 
never  been  done  before; — and  since  what  England 
has  not  been  doing  can  never,  to  the  English  mind, 
be  done  at  all — were  mismanaged  as  badly  as  the 
late  emigration  work  of  the  charitable  societies  has 
been  mismanaged;  suppose  it  did  not  pay  five  per 
cent. ;  that  its  income  did  not  equal  its  outgo ;  suppose 
it  sunk  five  million  pounds  a  year — half  as  much  as 
mismanaged  charity  sinks;  suppose  it  sunk  thirty 
millions  of  pounds  each  year — as  much  as  charity  to 
the  unemployed  costs  England  annually  now, — still  it 
would  pay  vast  usury  of  profit. 

Suppose  it  emigrated  wisely  only  a  thousand  men 
each  year,  instead  of  a  hundred  thousand  unwisely.  A 
thousand  men  rotting  in  London — what  do  they 
produce?  A  thousand  men  transported  to  rot  again 
in  Canada — what  do  they  produce?  They  produce 


204  THE  SOWING 

pestilence,  menace  to  human  life  and  progress.  They 
produce  national  decadence.  But,  a  thousand  men 
capitalized  for  one  year  in  opportunity, — fed  intelli- 
gently, which  is  to  say,  fed  by  their  own  hands, — what 
do  that  thousand  men  produce?  If  they  only  made 
half  their  daily  bread,  they  have  left  chance  back  in 
England  for  another  thousand  men;  and  they  have 
purified  the  pestilential  stream  of  some  English  city 
by  a  thousand  units  of  apathy  and  crime,  despair 
and  vice. 

The  author  knows  a  group  of  capitalists  who  are 
planting  pine  trees.  Why?  They  are  doing  it  for 
their  grandchildren.  Shall  a  nation  be  less  wise  and 
less  far-seeing  than  a  business  man?  The  next 
generation — ah!  there  lies  your  usury,  vast,  beautiful, 
magnificent,  splendid  usury — usury  to  leave  an 
Empire  rich. 

As  the  surface  of  the  earth  has  been  more  filled, 
its  raw  resources  been  more  developed,  it  has  been 
growing  richer,  has  grown  richer  faster  than  its  people 
have  multiplied.  A  few  men,  under  one  government 
or  another,  in  one  way  or  another,  have  taken  over 
world-money.  The  money  of  some  of  the  world's 
great  multi-millionaires  does  not  belong  to  them  in 


THE  TRANSPLANTING  205 

any  such  quantities.  Haltingly  a  general  social 
unrest  begins  to  spell  that  out;  an  unrest  that  does 
not  classify  as  Socialism,  as  yet.  But  that  black 
Satyr  will  grow  amazing  fast  if  we  shall  not  pause  to 
think  that  no  man  can  earn  such  wealth  as  a  few  men 
to-day  hold  back  from  the  world's  use.  That  wealth 
— Ah,  what  philanthropist  could  ask  a  grander  use 
for  it  than  in  the  purchase  of  human  opportunity? 
What  labor  better  could  repay  its  employment? 
What  enterprise  of  profit  may  be  mentioned  in  the 
same  breath  with  it?  And  to  do  it  is  but  to  do  it. 
There  is  more  money  wasted  in  impractical  philan- 
thropy than  would  be  needed  here  if  rightly  used. 
Thirty  million  pounds  annually  to  the  unemployed — 
money  burnt  up,  thrown  away!  Give  one-half  of 
that  annually  for  twenty  years,  and  there  will  arise 
west  of  Winnipeg  such  an  empire  as  the  world  never 
saw.  Its  rulers  shall  be  the  hard  head  and  the  soft 
heart  ! 

If  this  notion  be  called  absurd,  that  may  be  in 
part  because  it  is  in  advance  of  the  day.  It  cannot 
long  be  in  advance  of  average  thought.  It  is  only  to 
say  that  men  will  earn  more  on  the  prairies  than  they 
can  rotting  in  the  city  slums.  It  is  only  to  say  that 
charity  is  not  philanthropy.  It  is  only  to  say  that 


206  THE  SOWING 

philanthropy  must  offer  a  material  uplift,  that  religion 
to-day  must  be  practical. 

Philanthropy  which  capitalizes  a  thousand  poor  at 
five  per  cent.,  which  changes  a  thousand  units  of  vice 
and  apathy  into  a  thousand  units  of  opportunity  and 
hope, — that  is  no  more  than  simple  merchandising; 
only  that  now  you  sell  human  opportunity ;  and  you 
sell  it  on  credit,  secured  by  land ;  land  which  enhances 
in  value  with  each  spade  that  goes  into  the  ground, 
each  furrow  turned  by  plough.  A  hundred  greater 
business  enterprises  than  this  go  forward  all  the  time. 
The  great  captains  of  enterprises  do  more  difficult 
deeds  than  this  continually.  Yet  to  do  this  enterprise 
of  a  prepared  environment  is  to  do  that  vaster  deed 
of  reconciling  the  war  between  the  heart  and  the 
head. 

When  you  have  done  that,  you  are  in  position  to 
allow  the  minister  of  the  Gospel  to  ponder  about  the 
religion  of  these  new  folk,  and  to  do  so  with  no  charge 
of  impracticality.  His  work  will  come  in  its  own 
right  time.  This  man  who  wants  the  old  sentiment 
for  Old  England  to  obtain — it  is  possible  for  him,  too, 
to  have  his  dream.  Yonder  official,  hard-headed  and 
experienced,  who  seeks  the  material  welfare  of  his 
country — he,  too,  may  have  his  wish!  The  member 


THE  TRANSPLANTING  207 

of  the  government,  with  heart  as  warm  as  his  head  is 
cold — his  dream  comes  true.  Yonder  charitable 
society,  which  has  labored  with  no  prospect  of  gain, 
— it  still  may  labor,  but  now  with  recompense ;  recom- 
pense which  makes  for  the  real  glory  of  England  and 
for  the  real  benefit  of  the  world. 

Now  we  do  come  close  to  religion,  religion  plus 
business;  and  this  is  what  must  supplant  to  some 
extent  the  religion  of  earlier  times.  The  earth 
changes,  and  with  it  must  change  the  earth's  religions, 
all  the  earth's  methods  of  thinking?  and  doing,  even 
of  dreaming.  A  material  age?  Yes,  but  we  must 
adjust  to  it  or  perish;  because  the  days  do  not, 
cannot,  and  never  can  wait  for  us.  But  the  dream 
of  religion  itself  is  best  compassed  in  the  most  prac- 
tical philanthropy. 

If  then,  all  this  may  be;  if  we  have  indeed  found 
some  theory  which  explains  all  existing  phenomena; 
then,  in  the  terms  of  science,  that  is  the  theory  to 
accept.  There  was  a  day  when  we  knew  nothing  of 
gravitation,  when  we  doubted  the  revolution  of  the 
earth.  Those  things  were  slowly  reasoned  out,  by 
theories  which  covered  all  existing  phenomena. 

We  are  not,  however,  in  this  case  confined  to 
theory  alone.  The  subjects  with  which  we  have  been 


208  THE  SOWING 

engaged  are  of  a  human  importance  so  vital  and  wide- 
reaching  that  the  thing  is,  to  use  a  popular  phrase,  in 
the  air  to-day.  Once  the  writer  conceived  what 
seemed  to  him  a  happy  dramatic  idea.  It  was  later 
worked  out,  but  only  in  time  to  meet  the  same  idea 
embodied  in  a  drama  done  by  quite  another  person, 
who  independently  had  conceived  that  same  idea. 
At  another  time  precisely  this  same  incident  occurred. 
In  both  cases  the  ideas  themselves  proved  valid. 
Such  experiences  as  this  are  common  in  the  life  of 
every  author.  They  are  common  as  well  in  every 
other,  walk  of  life.  A  good  idea  is  not  the  property 
of  any  one  man.  A  great  idea  never  was  conceived 
by  any  one  man.  It  is  conceived  by  the  world  itself; 
born  of  the  necessity  of  the  world  for  precisely  that 
thing. 

Now,  the  plan  suggested  in  these  pages,  wholly 
visionary  as  it  may  seem  to  some,  and  wholly  theoret- 
ical as  it  may  seem  to  most,  is  not  the  author's  own, 
but  was  first  suggested  to  him  by  an  idealist  in  busi- 
ness, the  same  man  who  thought  that  there  could  be 
such  a  thing  as  kindness  and  justice  in  a  practical 
business  office.  Should  credit  be  given  to  this  man  for 
the  idea?  No;  let  us  rather  give  credit  to  the  world, 
which  has  developed  this  idea  at  the  time  it  was 


THE  TRANSPLANTING  209 

needed.  Because,  so  far  from  this  being  a  matter 
of  theory,  it  is  even  now  a  matter  of  fact.  The 
problem  of  a  practical  and  businesslike  philanthropy 
has  in  at  least  one  instance  been  worked  out  in  detail. 
To  make  the  contrast  clean  cut,  let  us  go  back 
once  more  across  seas.  In  the  month  of  September, 
1908,  Prince  Arthur  of  Connaught,  nephew  of  King 
Edward,  visited  the  city  of  Glasgow.  Prince  Arthur 
is  a  manly  man,  a  good  soldier,  and  a  just  man. 
There  is  nothing  in  his  personality  which  has  rendered 
him  distasteful  to  the  people  of  any  portion  of  Great 
Britain.  Yet,  when  his  carriage  passed  down  the 
streets  of  Glasgow,  it  was  mobbed  by  five  thousand 
idle  men.  In  this  demonstration — which,  bear  in 
mind,  took  place  in  self -restrained  Scotland — there 
arose  often  the  revolutionary  air  of  the  Marseillaise! 
The  crowd  pressed  about  the  carriage  in  George's 
Square  in  the  most  menacing  manner,  and  there  were 
many  turbulent  and  deeply  regrettable  scenes. 
There  was  much  hissing  and  shouting  against  the 
Prince  and  his  people,  and  when  the  Troops'  Band 
played  "God  Save  the  King,"  not  a  single  head  in  the 
crowd  was  uncovered,  and  the  mob  broke  out  with 
the  refrain,  "Keep  the  Red  Flag  Flying!"  So,  at 
least,  run  the  dispatches  describing  the  affair.  It  is 


210  THE  SOWING 

not  to  be  supposed  that  these  unemployed  thousands 
had  any  personal  dislike  for  Prince  Arthur  of  Con- 
naught.  Their  resentment  was  against  the  elaborate 
features  provided  for  his  entertainment,  whilst  they 
themselves  were  upon  the  point  of  another  bread  riot. 
Worst  of  all,  there  were  ten  thousand  boys  on  parade 
— young  men,  unemployed,  out  of  work  and  out  of 
bread.  This  is  given  as  a  truthful  picture  of  modern 
civilization  in  the  old  country  in  the  current  year.  It 
is  difficult  to  conceive  of  a  picture  sadder  or  more 
disturbing. 

Lest  it  should  be  urged  that  an  American  writer 
finds  pleasure  in  English  distress,  one  hastens  to  offer 
a  kindred  instance  of  the  current  year  in  the  city  of 
New  York.  During  the  past  summer  in  the  more 
poverty-smitten  portions  of  that  great  city,  hundreds 
of  school  children  were  found  to  be  starving,  even  as 
those  of  Berlin  are  accustomed  to  starve.  A  com- 
mittee of  schoolboard  members  found  it  necessary  to 
arrange  two  public  kitchens  at  which  the  hungry 
children  might  be  fed  before  they  were  taught. 
Necessarily,  funds  for  this  work  were  scanty  enough, 
and  the  committee  undertook  to  enlist  popular 
interest  in  the  kitchen  fund.  One  of  the  committee 
states  that  many  instances  had  been  discovered  where 


THE  TRANSPLANTING  211 

children  were  sent  to  school  without  having  had  food 
in  a  term  of  forty -eight  hours.  Some  children  fainted 
while  they  were  reciting  in  their  class  rooms.  This  is 
civilization  in  the  proudest  city  of  the  proudest 
republic  of  the  world.  One  hesitates  to  call 
such  facts  less  horrible  than  yonder  demonstration 
against  government  in  the  proudest  monarchy  of  the 
world. 

Opposed  to  pictures  such  as  these  we  have  the  idea 
of  a  practical  philanthropy ;  and  regarding  this  latter 
we  have  a  concrete  instance  showing  the  thing  accom- 
plished. While  this  has  been  worked  out  in  theory 
in  Canada,  *'/  has  been  done  in  fact  and  in  detail  in 
the  United  States. 

The  Consolidated  Farm  Company,  of  Marshfield, 
Wisconsin,  in  the  fall  of  1907  put  into  effect  the  idea 
that  men  of  no  means  could  be  established  upon 
farm  lands,  and  could,  so  to  speak,  practically 
capitalize  themselves  after  the  initial  effort.  Within 
the  year,  this  company  had  founded  a  colony  of  fifty 
people  whose  combined  original  capital  was  but  $500. 
In  one  year  the  work  upon  the  land  had  more  than 
doubled  the  original  capital;  because  upon  a  face 
investment  of  $5,000  there  had  been  paid  back  $800. 
The  manager  of  the  company,  Mr.  John  P.  Hume,  is 


212  THE  SOWING 

quoted  in  regard  to  this  experiment  in  the  following 
words: 

"Why  should  we  not  manufacture  farms  as  well 
as  to  manufacture  iron  or  steel  or  woodenware  ?  We 
take  the  thing  in  the  rough  and  turn  out  a* finished 
product.  While  we  are  doing  this  we  furnish  employ- 
ment for  people  who  want  to  get  out  on  the  land  and 
have  no  means  with  which  to  do  so;  as  they  could 
not  make  a  payment  on  a  farm,  nor  build  a  house, 
nor  live,  until  after  they  had  raised  a  crop. 

"No,  we  are  not  philanthropists,  not  by  a  great 
deal.  But  we  do  give  the  settler  a  fair  show,  while 
at  the  same  time  we  get  a  good  return  on  our  invest- 
ment. Our  plan  is  being  considered  by  many  big 
land  holders  in  the  northern  part  of  this  state  who 
wish  to  dispose  of  their  land.  There  are  hundreds  of 
unemployed  men  who  want  to  get  out  on  land.  They 
have  no  money,  or  if  they  do  have,  it  is  little,  not 
even  enough  to  put  up  a  small  shed  of  a  house  if  they 
could  get  the  land  without  making  the  first  payment. 
What  chance  have  they  of  owning  land  ?  The  idea  is 
so  staggering  that  they  give  it  up  and  go  on  trying  to 
live  in  the  city  and  raise  a  family,  generally  with  poor 
success.  We  sell  the  man  a  small  tract  of  land,  give 
him  a  house  and  cow,  and  then  use  him  in  clearing 


THE  TRANSPLANTING  213 

up  more  land  in  our  process  of  manufacturing  farms. 
We  have  thirty-five  men  on  four  hundred  acres  of 
land,  and  in  the  whole  party  you  could  not  gather 
together  $1,000.  But  they  all  have  money  in  their 
pockets  and  pay  cash  at  the  stores  for  what  they 
purchase,  and  live  well.  We  pay  good  wages  for  labor 
and  always  employ  our  own  settlers.  For  their  work 
they  receive  two-thirds  of  what  they  earn  to  support 
themselves,  and  it  is  paid  in  cash,  and  one-third  is 
taken  to  pay  for  the  land.  As  a  rule,  they  work  four 
months  in  the  year  for  themselves,  and  the  remainder 
of  the  time  for  us  in  clearing  land.  In  that  way 
they  are  able  to  pay  for  their  land  and  get  along,  while 
never  being  anxious  as  to  their  living. 

"  In  the  old  days  settlers  could  go  into  the  northern 
part  of  this  state,  take  up  land,  and  then  go  into  the 
logging  camps  and  earn  money  enough  to  support 
their  families  for  the  years  while  they  worked  in 
clearing  up  their  land  and  getting  it  in  shape  for  crops. 
But  this  method  cannot  be  pursued  now  for  the  reason 
that  the  timber  has  been  cut  off  and  the  mills  and 
lumber  camps  are  disappearing.  Therefore,  the  only 
way  that  a  poor  man  can  get  a  chance  is  in  some 
manner  similar  to  that  used  by  us.  This  is  not  philan- 


214  THE  SOWING 

thropy,  but  I  do  maintain  that  we  are  doing  a  good 
work  in  helping  to  make  free  citizens. 

"It  takes  considerable  capital  after  the  settler  is 
once  located,  and  this  capital  has  to  be  supplied,  or  an 
opportunity  offered  the  settler  to  earn  it  himself. 
Let  charitably  disposed  people  advance  money  at  a 
reasonable  rate  of  interest,  on  approved  security, 
permitting  the  borrower  to  pay  on  the  installment 
through  some  local  bank  or  other  trustworthy  source, 
and  I  will  guarantee  that  any  man  who  has  ambition 
can  get  along  and  own  a  home  of  his  own,  and  pay 
the  loan  in  three  years.  The  questions  raised  in 
this  discussion  are  among  the  most  important  that 
confront  the  people  of  the  United  States.  They  are 
easy  of  adjustment  if  handled  properly." 

True,  the  foregoing  experiment,  if  it  can  now  be 
called  such,  was  on  a  small  scale  but  it  was  made  in  a 
slashed-off  pine  country,  where  the  soil  required  much 
manual  labor  to  prepare  it  for  cropping.  Yet  that 
soil,  plus  labor,  is  proving  itself  equal  to  banking  interest 
plus  a  home  for  a  family! 

This  same  theorem  is  proving  itself  over  and  over 
again  in  the  densely  timbered  portions  of  the  Yazoo 
Delta  of  Mississippi,  one  of  the  southern  states  of  the 
American  Republic.  In  this  country  many  negro 


THE  TRANSPLANTING  215 

farmers  have  purchased  small  tracts  of  land,  and  in 
spite  of  the  enormous  .labor  of  clearing  up  the  heavy 
forest  growth,  and  in  spite  of  the  heavy  interest  rates 
obtaining  in  that  country,  have  succeeded  in  very 
many  instances  in  developing  farms  which,  compared 
to  their  former  lot,  leave  them  in  independence  and 
wealth.  The  soil,  plus  the  labor,  is  equal  to  exorbitant 
interest  plus  a  home! 

Does  Canada  hesitate  over  the  risk  incurred  in 
the  mere  supervision  of  the  work  of  preparing  her 
citizens- to-be ?  Is  it  a  question  of  returns?  Cannot 
Canada  compete  in  part  with  Australia?  Australia 
is  troubled  by  no  such  hesitancy.  She  goes  farther, 
Confident  of  the  future,  she  accepts  her  immigrants 
and  capitalizes  their  hopes. 

If  you  seek  the  truth,  do  not  go  to  the  editorial 
page.  It  is  unpaid,  but  untruthful  almost  always, 
because  almost  always  biased!  For  the  truth,  go  to 
the  paid  pages,  the  advertising  pages,  of  any  journal t 
because  there  only  the  truth  dare  be  told.  Now,  it 
is  the  advertising  pages  of  an  Australian  journal  that 
one  has  in  hand — and  what  truth  they  tell  is  the  story 
of  our  idea  all  worked  out,  not  by  a  society,  not  by 
a  company,  not  by  an  individual,  but  by  a  nation! 
Here  is  what  Australia  advertises: 


216  THE  SOWING 

"  The  government  gives  liberal  financial  assistance 
towards  the  improving  of  properties.  Farmers  may 
be  granted  £1,500  worth  of  land,  agricultural  lab- 
ourers £200  worth,  and  workmen  £100  worth,  the 
payment  being  on  very  easy  terms.  The  govern- 
ment assists  pound  for  pound  up  to  £50  towards 
fencing  and  building. 

"Advances  are  made  on  easy  terms  up  to  £250, 
repayable  in  twenty  years,  for  the  purposes  of 
building  and  effecting  improvements  on  the  land. 

"Emigrants  from  the  United  Kingdom  may  thus 
count  upon  a  warm  welcome  from  their  brothers  in 
Victoria,  Australia. 

"It  is  but  seventy-six  years  since  the  first  settle- 
ment was  established ;  now  it  possesses  over  a  million 
and  a  quarter  of  inhabitants.  The  country  has  over 
4,316  miles  of  railway  (all  owned  by  the  government) 
and  dotted  with  prosperous  townships.  More  than 
ninety -seven  per  cent,  of  our  Victorian  population  is 
British,  or  of  British  parentage,  and  England  and 
Great  Britain  are  spoken  of  as  'home '. 

"Fifty  million  acres  available  for  selection  in  the 
Southwest  Division,  with  regular  and  ample  rainfall. 

"The  most  liberal  land  laws  in  the  world.' 

"Free  grants  of  160  acres — additional  land  up  to 


THE  TRANSPLANTING  217 

2,000  acres  of  first-class  land,  or  5,000  acres  grazing 
land  on  exceptionally  easy  terms,  the  payments 
extending  over  twenty  years. 

"The  Government  Agricultural  Bank  makes  ad- 
vances on  liberal  terms  for  improvements  and  stocking 
— repayments  extending  over  thirty  years." 

Repayments  extending  over  thirty  years!  We  are 
told  that  the  government  not  only  sells  the  land  at  a 
nominal  price,  with  payment  distributed  over  twenty 
years,  free  of  interest,  but  also  provides,  through  the 
Agricultural  Bank,  the  whole  of  the  capital  required 
to  bring  virgin  country  to  a  state  of  productiveness. 
Light  agricultural  railways,  cheap  freights,  the  assist- 
ance of  the  Agricultural  Bank,  the  importation  and 
sale  of  stock,  the  preparing  of  land  for  settlement  by 
ringbarking  and  clearing,  and  the  provision  of  water 
supplies,  constitute  inducements  to  settlement  that 
are  just  beginning  to  be  appreciated,  not  only  by 
people  in  other  parts  of  the  world,  but  by  those  living 
in  the  State. 

Repayments  extending  over  thirty  years]  If 
Australia  can  do  that,  if  she  can  capitalize  a  timber- 
land  proposition  for  thirty  years,  what  ought  to  be  the 
case  in  western  Canada,  where  good  farming  often 
pays  for  the  prairie  land  in  one  year,  and  the  improve- 


218  THE  SOWING 

merits  the  next  ?  A  problem  ?  Where  is  the  problem 
beyond  that  of  administration?  The  proof?  In  the 
name  of  reason,  what  more  proof  is  needed?  We 
appeal  to  men,  not  children,  and  the  destinies  of 
Canada  are  in  the  hands  of  strong  and  able  men.  No 
nation  has  abler  leaders. 

If  such  leaders  pause,  they  must  pause  only 
through  conservatism,  through  respect  for  precedent. 
Yet  what  has  actually  been  precedent?  Canada  has 
been  one  of  the  most  liberal  nations  of  the  world  in 
its  promotion  and  its  financial  support  of  great 
railway  enterprises.  She  gave  a  king's  ransom  to 
her  first  great  railway,  princes'  ransoms  again  and 
again  to  others.  She  is  even  in  part  a  railway  builder 
in  person.  For  what  purpose  all  this  use  of  her 
people's  money?  Was  it  wrong?  No.  It  was  right. 
But  for  what  purpose?  To  build  a  country.  That  is 
all  we  ask.  Is  a  country  builded  without  a  popula- 
tion ?  Can  a  railway  be  supported  in  western  Canada 
by  any  save  a  population  of  practical  farmers?  If 
it  be  right  to  finance  a  railway,  is  it  not  quite  as  right 
— is  it  not  fundamentally,  logically,  and  govern- 
mentally  far  more  wise  and  desirable  to  finance  the 
planting  of  a  practical  support  for  that  railway?  Is 
that  not  business?  If  it  be  not  done,  will  not  the 


THE  TRANSPLANTING  219 

danger  of  the  American  invasion  continually  grow? 
To  a  cold  and  impartial  reason  the  corollary  goes 
with  the  theorem,  the  aided  settler  with  the  aided 
railway,  the  one  as  shrewdly  administered  as  the 
other;  and  the  need  for  both  as  plain  as  the  need  of 
strong  troops  at  a  dangerous  part  of  the  line,  with  a 
supply  train  running  back  to  the  supporting  base. 
We  appeal  to  men,  not  children,  and  not  faint  hearts; 
and  that  appeal  is  in  the  name  not  of  selfishness,  but 
of  good  to  an  empire  and  a  world. 

In  the  name  of  cold  and  impartial  reason,  let  us  ask 
once  more,  what  is  the  case  in  western  Canada,  where 
almost  nothing  needs  to  be  done  in  the  way  of  prepar- 
ing the  land  for  farming — where  plowing  and  seeding 
are  the  only  operations  antecedent  to  a  crop  valuable 
enough  to  pay  for  the  entire  land  itself?  Is  it  not  to 
be  supposed  that  there  also  the  soil  plus  even  partially 
skilled  labor,  will  be  equal  to  banking  interest  plus  a 
home  ? 

If  this  be  true — and  it  is  not  only  theoretically 
true  but  is  proved  to  be  practically  true  under  harder 
conditions — then  is  it  not  safe  to  say  that  our  problem 
is  solved;  that  philanthropy  and  hard -headed  busi- 
ness may  go  hand  in  hand  in  the  solution  of  the 
greatest  and  most  distressing  problem  of  the  day? 


220  THE  SOWING 

If  this  be  true — and  it  is  true — may  we  not  say  that  we 
have  won  our  case  herein  ?  If  this  be  true — and  it  is 
true — may  not  England,  Canada  and  the  United 
States,  all  of  them  interested  in  the  same  problem  and 
in  the  same  future,  each  face  that  future  not  only  with 
equanimity  but  with  cheerfulness  ? 

The  world  never  was  so  rich  and  never  so  poor  as 
it  is  to-day.  The  welfare  of  the  world,  the  welfare  of 
any  nation,  is  the  welfare  of  the  average  man.  Does 
it  not  seem  inevitably  logical  that  the  next  great 
thing  in  the  air  is  to  be  the  bringing  together  of  these 
extremes  in  the  establishment  of  a  philanthropical 
yet  practical  average?  Wealth  does  not  help  poverty 
by  charity.  Charity  does  not  upbuild  humanity. 
But  practical  philanthropy  as  we  have  outlined  it 
here,  not  only  can,  but  in  every  likelihood  will, 
not  only  help  humanity  but  insure  prosperity 
to  more  than  one  nation  troubled  with  those 
problems  which  the  advance  of  its  civilization  has 
brought  home. 

Now  comes  conservatism.  Now  comes  England, 
which  does  not  change, — and  which  rots  because  it 
does  not  change, — and  says:  "We  never  have  done 
this  thing." 

Comes    religion    and    says:      "We    have    never 


THE  TRANSPLANTING  221 

trafficked  in  men's  goods,  but  in  their  souls.  We 
cannot  change." 

Now  come  all  the  members  of  the  government, 
and  say:  "This  visionary  absurdity  would  cost  too 
much — for  that  it  would  cost  our  official  heads  to 
dream  of  it;  we  cannot  change." 

Now  comes  vague  philanthropy,  and  says:  "We 
always  have  dipped  at  the  old  sink,  and  we  cannot 
change." 

Lastly,  comes  racial  sentiment,  and  says — what  is 
not  the  truth:  "We  dare  not  change,  because  we 
love  a  flag!" 

Very  good,  each  and  all.  Do  not  change !  Goon! 
You  are  perhaps  wise  as  this  writer;  perhaps  wiser, 
for  that  might  be  easy.  Only,  be  sure  of  one  thing. 
Even  if  you  do  not  change,  none  the  less  the  world  will 
change,  and  its  requirements  with  it.  There  is  no 
philosophical  hope  for  the  endurance  of  the  present 
state  of  matters  in  England  and  the  United  States. 
Be  sure  that  it  will  change. 

Do  not  change,  you  who  are  so  wise.  Rest  secure 
in  your  wisdom.  Employ  your  old  plans,  which  have 
failed.  But  some  day  later,  look  at  two  pictures. 
They  are  yours  to  look  at  now,  if  you  like.  One  is  a 
picture  of  a  pleasant  trellised  field,  grown  high  with 


222  TH£  SOWING 

good  strong  plants.  The  other  is  a  picture  of  the 
assembled  cocksure  gods,  with  a  black,  growing  Satyr 
compelling  them  to  dance  to  what  sort  of  piping  best 
pleases  him.  What  does  wealth  wish?  Which  does 
it  desire,  Socialism,  or  Practical  Philanthropy?  It 
comes  to  that  choice. 

Ah,  what  fleeting,  evanescent  interpreters  are  we! 
THE  END. 


• 


oo 


